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Festival Negotiating boundless choice

MICHAL BONCZA tracks down some of the more radical events from the many listed in Boundaries, the theme of this month's London Festival of Architecture

FOR the last 15 years throughout June, the London Festival of Architecture has been bringing together hundreds of free events, ranging from exhibitions, debates, guided tours, family days and art performances with participants from all over the world.

There’s something for everyone and Brixton Boundaries is as good a place as any to start. It’s an immersive installation by local design and architecture studios which explores the everyday experience of the area’s boundaries, which provide a sense of security but also form barriers to growth and inclusion.

Drawing on a community workshop with local people, it highlights the creative ways to break them down.The Department Store, 248 Ferndale Road, Brixton SW9, until June 16, brixtonboundaries.com.

The Alternative to Poverty exhibition is presented by Article 25, who work to empower communities to use design, engineering and construction capabilities by combining skilled and unskilled local workers and channelling their communal efforts towards building schools, hospitals and homes in communities struck by disaster or conflict.

As a result access to health, education and safe homes is improved. Lobby, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, E14, until June 28. Instagram: @canarywharflondon.

The wow factor is provided by the legendary Bodies in Urban Spaces. Choreographed  by the Austrian Willi Dorner, its performers squeeze their bodies into seemingly impossibly tight nooks and crannies in urban spaces. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yM7E87Jdds.

It’s a mind-boggling experience watching the troupe intertwine and stack their bodies in doorways, arches, alcoves, alleyways and gaps in public buildings along the route as they travel through the City from Liverpool Street to the Barbican. June 13-14, details: cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do.
 
At RIBA, Walk the Line: The Distributed Vertical Border focuses on the reactivated train network in Mexico known as “La Bestia” (The Beast), the means by which nearly half a million migrants who enter Mexico each year from the south can travel north to the border with the US.

They do so through the entire length of the country anonymously and directly, as they flee violence and extreme poverty.

Focusing on seven cities, the exhibition spatialises trade, labour, screening, protection, violence and obstruction through a co-ordinates system that traces the architectural objects that constitute the route.

It’s been developed by Mexico City-based Proyector, which is dedicated to promoting emerging voices in contemporary architectural research. RIBA, 66 Portland Place, W1, ends July 6, architecture.com.
 
Globally, women face boundaries often constructed by and through cultures. Sometimes, they are essential to enhance women’s quality of life and welfare by providing them with protection and such boundaries begin to create “safe spaces.”

This Space is Mine, at the University of Westminster School of Architecture, explores what happens when these safe spaces are crossed and links the relationship between gender and space to question whether these spaces are actually ever safe. UoW, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1, ends June 28, westminster.ac.uk.

www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org

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