In discussing the potential of empty structures, I am met with the relative potential of vacancy. Can empty spaces become anything? And furthermore the opportunity to replicate a filling found elsewhere. Could your favourite shopping boardwalk be reconstructed anywhere? What do you see in the empty, when you try to look for something else, something unexpected, something new.

If we start questioning the way we percieve the potential of space, attempting to avoid our inclination of replicating previously experienced compositions of space and pro-gram, we may begin to realise other potentials. The sorry state of Vardøs vacants, the abundance of empty spaces, or scraps, boards, and trash laying around, also repre-sents a potential, however qualitatively different.

In what way could we best approach and explore this potential, while at the same time avoiding the trap of framing it, and responding to it, in an all too familiar fashion? This might be a cliché, but if so a neccessary one, see-ing as we should always be required to strive for excellence in the ability to free ourselves from past perceptions, and discover familiar circumstances anew.

IN CINEAMAS NEAR YOU

Could it be that unique circumstances require unique approaches? Should we allow ourselves to dwell in this investigation, rather than apply tools and ideas we know only too well from other contexts?

These five photos are an attempt to problematize the image of how all projects end up looking; happy, healthy, rich and elegant middle class people populating the proposed space. Is this what we want for Vardø? Is it even possible? Other photos look at the empty spaces as a potential for totally different possibilities. Some even explore the absurd in an attempt to broaden the scope through which we browse our opportunities, recognizing the demand for innovation in redefining spaces and places.

Could it be that unique circumstances require unique approaches? Should we allow ourselves to dwell in this investigation, rather than apply tools and ideas we know only too well from other contexts?