THE GRAND DOMESTIC REVOLUTION GOES ON
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USER'S MANUAL
Does the contemporary domestic sphere need change? If so, what forms can the grand domestic revolution of our time take? What kind of emancipatory forms of dwelling and social relations can we imagine in and against todays society of control? Since October 2009, Casco has embarked on its first ever long-term collective research project, exploring the contemporary condition of the private home and different ways in which living together can be practiced in and around it.
The Grand Domestic RevolutionUsers Manual (GDR) investigates the domestic space and its (changing) use through a variety of methods and disciplines, traversing the fields of art, design, architecture, urban planning, activism and theory. A number of artists and other practitioners contribute to this endeavour. Residents from 2009-2011 include Sepake Angiama, Paul Elliman, and Doris Denekamp who utilized neighbourhood and online research to create prototypes and interventions around the theme of (Green) Cooperativsm. Wietske Maas and Travis Meinolf experimented with Home Production; while 'interor' infrastuctural interventions for the furniture, library and hallways were created by ifau & Jesko Fezer, Mirjam Thomann and Graziela Kunsch. Current themes and residents from FebruaryOctober 2011 include Kyohei Sakaguchi and Katerina edá who will each investigate forms of usership in architectures; home and housing rights with Maria Pask and Nazima Kadir; the question of invisible and domestic labour taken up by Werker Magazine; Agency will continue its deliberations on copyright issues of domestic THINGS (gardens and textiles); and keywords in relations to food service work will be workshopped with Xu Tan. Parallel to this, the Read-in activity continues. Initiated by artist Annette Krauss and theatre maker, Read-in is an open reading group inhabiting a different neighbours home for every session.
This publication is a reflection and MIDTERM MANUAL for ongoing artistic and design research and activities for Users Manual: The Grand Domestic Revolution. Features include surveys of contemporary cooperative and co-housing movements, an essay linking artistic and domestic labour and an interview with Dolores Hayden, author of the original The Grand Domestic Revolution, a chronicle of 19th century material feminist design movement in the United States. With an overview of the project processed thus far and extracts offered from the evolving project library, this publication is a proposition for readers to engage with the collective research process of GDR.
