`What does it mean to share?`

‘What does it
mean to share?’
Spectacle and the Everyday
Monuments of Identity: Representing communities and their nations
Unfolded Monument: Net drawn of the Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban designed
by Louis Kahn
Emily Wilding Davison
House, 1993 by Rachel Whiteread, an installation exploring
the ideas of nostalgia and objects as Landmarks.
Emily Wilding Davison hid in the broom cupboard of the Crypt in Westminster as a protest for women’s rights on
the eve of the 1911 census. By residing there over night she was able to claim her address as the House of Commons
and at the same time an equal rights to those of men, ‘the right to vote’.
‘Commons on Common Ground: Monuments of Iconic Protest’
The ‘Commons on Common Ground’ represents a process of negotiations through encounters of architectural interventions in open urban spaces. The proposal questions ‘what it means to share’ by constructing monuments as a
spatial and iconic protest. It is key for the act of commoning to ensure an understanding of community differences
and to appreciate society’s responsibilities in the production of space.
We propose a playful response to engage in the multiplicity of London’s communities by offering one-person scaled
representations of national monuments. In doing so, we provide shelter and places for debate while raising awareness
towards the importance of participation of the collective in order to create changes in society.
These paper-like structures appear and disappear, continually exchanging ownership and responsibility. It is by creating a sense of social identity that will enable communities to take part in the ongoing debate and to provide society
their own right to the city. The interventions intend to establish a notion of collective participation by engaging in the
diversity and interesting nature of cultural differences in the city.
The materiality and simple construction - using card and folded paper nets - enables the architecture to take on
a temporal quality while the occupation responds to a reproduction of space in an emerging society. Through the
monumentality and their form, these pieces offer everything and nothing. By showing a presence they act as icons for
enjoyment with the aim of contributing to discussions on social policy. Ultimately, it hopes to create a platform for
the re-negotiation of shared space and an encounter of the ‘Commons on Common Ground’.
Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban sits in Victoria Tower Gardens
as a spatial protest
‘COMMONS ON COMMON GROUND’
Monuments of Iconic Protest: Proposal by Benni Allan and Owain Williams
“The ambiguous project of emancipation has to do with regulating relationships between differences
rather than affirming commonalities based on similarities” - Stavros Stavrides
Commons on the Commons