AGENCY (Susanne Bosch, Chérie Driver, Sandra Johnston) / Belfast
AGENCY1 exists since 2006 and has neither a manifesto nor is a fixed group of creative practitioners.
AGENCY was a guest for a week in March 2008 at the pilotproject. The participants were Chérie Driver, Sandra Johnston and Susanne Bosch. We spent the week exploring the entire area and speculating about its past and future. As part of this process we looked into property prices and arranged apartment viewings with an estate agent. We also met local residents, community managers and the two projectmanagers Uwe Jonas und Birgit Anna Schumacher to listen to their impression about contemporary Gropiusstadt. Some perspectives we encountered about Gropiusstadt as a residential location were quite negative, generally statements from residents of other Berlin neighbourhoods. But in response to all of the diverse viewpoints we heard, we tried to consider objectively our own experiential reaction to the qualities of the environment, and we found there was much to appreciate, and inevitable great complexity which we decided we did not want to make a simplistic response to. The most honest outcome for us being there in the apartment was to realize the value of such an opportunity given to us, to reflect objectively on our everyday living situations in Northern Ireland (and the emotions and choices they entail).
Subsequently a few months later we developed a billboard project in Gipsstraße in Berlin Mitte, which is a reflection of our visit and the debate which living in Gropiusstadt initiated.
1a·gen·cy n
1. an organization, especially a company, acting as the representative, agent, or subcontractor of a person or another company
2. a division of a government or international organization that carries out administrative duties
3. the building or offices where an agency is located
4. the action, medium, or means by which something is accomplished
5. a legal relationship involving a person (the principal) and another who acts for the person (the agent), or the area of the law concerned with such relationships