On 21 September, I spoke at the one-day symposium ‘Large-Scale Housing Projects as Productive Space in Literature and Culture’ held at Tensta konsthall, a centre for contemporary art in the 1960s large-scale suburb of Tensta, Stockholm. This was an event jointly presented by ALUS and the Department of Culture and Aesthetics (IKE) and the Department of Baltic Languages, Finnish, and German, Stockholm University.
My talk developed my work on the intersections between individual experience and citiness or the personality of a city using the example of life stories of different sorts from 20th century St Louis, Missouri. When you put together for example the memories of the poet T.S. Eliot of childhood in St Louis in the 1890s and early 1900s, with the memories of residents of the Pruitt-Igoe development from the 1960s and early 1970s, you start to see connections and stories that wouldn’t emerge otherwise.
In the talk, ‘Myth and Materiality in The Pruitt-Igoe Myth‘, I took as a primary text an archive and interview based documentary film (dir. Chad Freidrichs, 2011). The film is a rich source for grasping both the ways in which the story of Pruitt-Igoe has been told, and the harshly material aspects of how life there broke down in unmaintained buildings. Many of the speakers in the film expressed positive aspects of life there, including senses of celebration, togetherness and home.
Overall this was a fascinating symposium, which worked well for discussion. Topics were close enough for us really to learn from each other, and we didn’t pack the day with too many talks so there was space for freer exchange of thoughts at the end. The venue, in the heart of a ‘large-scale housing project’ built as part of Sweden’s Million Programme, contributed a great deal. We had a tour of the shopping centre in the venue where, in connection with the Tensta Konsthall and community centre, art has been installed in various shops and small-businesses now established there. This was a great opportunity to hear about Tensta from a resident artist and also interact a little with community members who have very varied backgrounds.