FORSK ON BLOX: Biopsies of the abandoned and the reverse Biopsy

Research topic
At the moment the rural population is abandoning their home villages and moving into the cities. Thus, the economic and social inequality between the urban and rural populations is increasing. The implications for rural villages are conspicuous and exemplified by a rapidly increasing number of decaying abandoned buildings. Thus, the physical appearance, as well as the identity of the rural villages, will undergo fundamental changes in the coming years. Abandoned buildings in the Danish rural villages are the crux of the research behind the exhibited artefacts.

Today, the Danish government attempts to address the problematic presence of ruins in the rural village-scape through large-scale state-funded demolition projects. Despite good intentions, these demolition efforts emphasize the fast eradication of local history, identity, and community cohesion under the guise of state-authorized clean-up projects. The question remains whether something is irrevocably lost when buildings are demolished overnight and replaced with lawns. Therefore, there is an urgent need to enable public discourse with a more nuanced view on abandoned rural houses.

This research has been conducted as a counter-practice of radical preservation. It seeks to reveal and activate the endangered intrinsic qualities through implementing a series of transformations of abandoned buildings prototyped at full scale in various rural village settings. Each of the transformations serves two purposes. First, they represent implemented prototypes of different strategies on the inevitable future transformation of the rural village-scape. Second, the transformations act as catalysts of the locally rooted debate as an attempt to influence public discourse. The residents’ responses are considered a significant impact indicator, supplementary to the physical transformations themselves. The exhibited artefacts represent a minor sample of these transformations.

Biopsies of the abandoned (2015) originate from a vernacular farmhouse in the village of Ydby, dated 1780. Despite being listed as worthy of preservation, the farmhouse and the intact barn complex were condemned to demolition. This bleak prognosis allowed destructive interventions to the pig stable. Similar to pathological preparations, fragments were cut out as biopsies. These were aligned with the forage trough, which originally separated man from animal.

The biopsies covered a broad range of historical events over the entire lifespan of the building as well as the spatial dimensions of the pig stable. Apart from exposing the revealed material history and spatiality of the 235 year old pig stable, the biopsies exposed the building’s previously hidden sub-nature, such as a revealed drainpipe. Similar to a medical dissection, the relations between internal and external were emphasized.

The spatial experience of the pig stable was re-established based on the biopsies, as a compressed spatial sequence within a new context. In this case, the new environment was an exhibition. More important than meeting the demand of the exhibition space was an attempt to test the preservation of space, materiality and even ambiance through a minimal reconstruction of a building detached completely from its original context. The reinterpreted spatial sequence also raises a discussion on how to preserve endangered buildings worthy of preservation. Although the method may seem radical, the only remaining outcome of the abandoned farmhouse was demolition.

The reverse biopsy (2016) originates from an abandoned confectionary located in the pedestrianized zone of the main road in the rural small-town Hurup. As part of a research prototype, the confectionary was reopened for a two-month period before it was demolished. An attempt was made to catalyze an exchange of narratives of the building and the place into the collective memory, thus preserving the building immaterially.

A horizontal cut-out within the dimensions of the fridge in the private kitchen reopened an old connection from the bakery shop to the bakery in the back building - through the kitchen. This intervention was undertaken in a similar manner to a horizontal reverse biopsy, cutting its way through three states of privacy. This allowed the beholder to look through the entire building from one specific position on the pedestrian street outside the storefront.

The physical extent of the biopsy began at the inner wall of the public bakery shop that was visible from the pedestrian street. The penetration of this inner wall made of plaster first revealed a closed doorway, including the encased door leaf at the back of a fridge. The intervention then continued on the opposite side of the fridge door in the private kitchen. Here it cut lengthwise through the kitchen table, the cupboards, the dishwasher, the zinc, and the top cupboards. It then penetrated the tiled brick wall at the end of the kitchen by creating an opening towards the scullery. From here, two tiled brick walls were opened, the latter of which joined the intervention with the bakery space by cutting through a porcelain zinc. The intervention terminated once it reached the outside by cutting through a workbench and the tiled end wall of the building.