Studio René Boer

René Boer (1986, he/him) works as a critic, curator and organizer in and beyond the fields of architecture, art, design and heritage. He is based between Amsterdam and Cairo and is a driving force behind the Failed Architecture platform. In recent years he developed a wide array of exhibitions, public programmes and research projects, often with a focus on spatial justice, urban imaginations and queer tactics. His current projects include Contemporary Commoning, an experimental exploration of the relation between art and (urban) commons; Terraforming Indonesia, a programme investigating and reimaginging large-scale land reclamations in collaboration with the ruangruapa collective; and Smooth City, a forthcoming publication on the obsession with perfection in cities worldwide.

selected projects
Architecture of Appropriation
Contemporary Commoning
Failed Architecture
Grounded Urban Practices
Misericordia
Post-Fossil City
Reimagining Cairo
Smooth City
Terraforming Indonesia
The Right to Build
Useful Life
Wallen2020

mail@reneboer.net
@rene_boer_

Contemporary Commoning

This two-year artistic research project, which started in the spring of 2020, investigates the potential relations between the arts and the commons. It is grounded in Amsterdam's Zeeburgereiland, a newly developed neighborhood on an island at the city's eastern fringes, where the project's researchers will collaborate.



Researchers Ronald Rietveld (RAAAF), Socrates Schouten (Waag) and Suzanna Tomor (University of Amsterdam) will examine the many ways in which 'commoning' can contribute to new forms of public space, in the physical as well as the digital realm. It takes the potential contribution of design and art in these processes of 'commoning' as the main point of departure.



The project is developed in collaboration with Jeroen Boomgaard of the Research Institute for Art and Public Space of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Casco Art Institute and the Nautilus housing community at Zeeburgereiland. By having researchers from different disciplines working closely together, the project seeks to develop a multifaceted toolkit with 'recipes for the commons'.