Walk along the tram tracks that cut through Hammarby Stöstad, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Stockholm, and you’ll pass modern condos and old factories, the architectural signposts of a neighborhood in transition. More eye-catching is the dense overgrowth of trees and bushes that sprouts out of the blacktop—a forgotten oasis within an abandoned parking lot.
The overlooked spot, and the contrast with its surroundings, made it perfect for the Stockholm outpost of Wasteland Twinning. A collective of artists and researchers throughout Europe and Asia, the project was started by Berlin artists Will Foster, Lars Hayer, and Matthias Einhoff to explore forgotten spaces in cities across the world. They take the idea of “city twinning” or “sister cities”—typically a ploy by politicians to encourage commercial agreements—and bring it to the more unorthodox context of urban wastelands.
The Wasteland Twinning network now includes 11 sites in cities from England to Indonesia and lives online as a repository of information about and artistic responses to the spaces. Participants can share field notes, impressions, and documents explaining the land use history or development plans for each site.
Over beers at a bar in Stockholm’s Sodermalm neighborhood, project cofounder Hayer says he is most interested in spaces that are “right in the middle of another context, where you don’t find any reason for this space to be; spaces that don’t have any specific purpose.” Foster agrees: “These spaces kind of defy definition.”
Both founders are quick to clarify that their project is not meant to “reclaim” or “redefine” the spaces. Unlike, say, guerilla gardeners, the goal of the Wasteland Twinning explorers is simply to learn about these spaces while they can. As for the Stockholm site, its location within a quickly changing waterfront neighborhood means it won’t last long in the midst of all the growth. “It’s a temporary space, it’s not there for very long, but it’s part of the cycle of land use, and that’s what makes it so interesting,” Foster says. “And I don’t think any kind of intervention that we’ll do is going to change that.”
—Lauren Kirchner
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