Project

Mon (s) Invisible, is a word play from the name of the city of Mons (Belgium) and the French pronoun ‘mon’, mine. In the heart of a small and unfortunately closed public park on the roof of a former army bakery, a circular wooden platform is being built. This “Agora” is the stage for the Youth Program of the Capital of Culture Mons 2015. Under the title “Mon (s) Idéal”, the curators invite people to think utopically and appeal to the inhabitants (and not just the young ones) for their city and its future inhabitants.

The municipality of Mons has declared itself ready to open the park for a summer. In collaboration with “les commissaires anonymes”, a group of young curators working in Brussels, a program has been developed that addresses the residents as well as the culture interested visitors and offers opportunities for their own initiatives. The aim of this commitment is to bring together a group of local actors who would participate in a permanent opening of the park.

In order to enable the program and to activate the park through residences and workshops, further temporary structures are created in the park: a 45m long wooden structure offers space for 20 berths, kitchen, dining room, storage areas, bathroom and compost toilet. A group of residents built a wooden oven, a mobile beer brewery, a sauna or a children’s playground, just to name a few.

The project was prepared in a series of local workshops, in November 2014, Constructlab invited the local architecture school for a workshop with 150 students, the theme being the imaginary future inhabitants of the park. In February, the park is being prepared for the summer with the Berlin landscape architects and gardeners from ‘le Balto’, a design of a landscaped architectural design has been worked out and partially implemented as a suggestion on the spot. In May / June followed a three-week construction site with 20 international ‘design-buildern’ by Constructlab from 10 different European countries and a big number of local participants.