[url] Seminar: Waste Economies: Mapping Formal and Informal Waste Infrastructures in Shanghai

[Ned Rossiter]

'Waste Economies: Mapping Formal and Informal Waste Infrastructures  
in Shanghai'

Seminar: Laboratory on Urban Research, http://urbanresearchlab.net/

Presenters: Maren Koehler and Bettina Vismann

Date: Saturday 27 March, 2010
Time: 2-4pm
Venue: Xindanwei, 4C, Bld 4 in Shanghai Hub No. 727 Dingxi Lu,  
Changning, http://xindanwei.com

Abstract
This project investigates the organizational and spatial dimensions  
of waste, with a special focus on the collection of urban waste and  
processes of selection for recycling. In Shanghai the treatment of  
municipal waste is an everyday routine. Alongside official procedures  
for waste management, lateral networks with high flexibilitity and  
efficiency have developed. The system of interconnected scavengers,  
selectors and streetcleaners is made visible when spatially  
registered. A street corner, a wastebin, a collection depot become  
temporary nodes of exchange.

Our investigation of the logistics of municipal waste and its  
attendant economies is made accessable by combining drawing  
techniques with photography. In this seminar we discuss the  
discrepencies between formal and informal uses of public space and  
waste as they connect with different modes of self-organized labour.

The study of waste in Shanghai is part of a broader analysis  
conducted in Eastern and Western Europe.

Bio
Maren Koehler is an architect and independent researcher based in  
Shanghai. Bettina Vismann is running an architectural research  
practice in Berlin. In the past 10 years they have collaborated on  
projects combining research, architectural practice and academic  
teaching.