Our participatory practices include:
Cité internationale des arts
We worked at the Cité Internationale des arts residency in Paris in the autumn of 2025.
The project studied the lived experience in the Parisian grands ensembles: postwar housing complexes built primarily during Les Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) as symbols of progress and housing for all, later burdened by neglect and stigma.
Because these neighbourhoods occupy a sensitive place in public discourse, we adopted drawing as our primary method. Many residents prefer not to be photographed, while drawing offers a slow, public, and conversational approach that invites curiosity and exchange. Rather than fleeting images, it demands time and presence, treating these postwar complexes as monuments in their own right.
From September to December 2025, we visited over twenty grands ensembles around the Paris metropolitan area. Seeking sustained engagement with a single site, we chose Sarcelles, a northern suburb thirty minutes from central Paris on the regional train RER D. Built between 1954 and 1976, Sarcelles is one of France’s most emblematic grands ensembles.
The project culminated in a series of drawing workshops with local residents — immigrant women and young men — who were invited to share and express their own stories through drawing. The project was conducted in collaboration with local organisations Accueil & Culture and Compagnons Bâtisseurs. The workshops were made together with Iranian dramaturg Elaheh Nouri. The work was exhibited at the Cité Internationale des arts in December 2025. The project was funded by the Finnish Culture Fund and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
The project studied the lived experience in the Parisian grands ensembles: postwar housing complexes built primarily during Les Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) as symbols of progress and housing for all, later burdened by neglect and stigma.
Because these neighbourhoods occupy a sensitive place in public discourse, we adopted drawing as our primary method. Many residents prefer not to be photographed, while drawing offers a slow, public, and conversational approach that invites curiosity and exchange. Rather than fleeting images, it demands time and presence, treating these postwar complexes as monuments in their own right.
From September to December 2025, we visited over twenty grands ensembles around the Paris metropolitan area. Seeking sustained engagement with a single site, we chose Sarcelles, a northern suburb thirty minutes from central Paris on the regional train RER D. Built between 1954 and 1976, Sarcelles is one of France’s most emblematic grands ensembles.
The project culminated in a series of drawing workshops with local residents — immigrant women and young men — who were invited to share and express their own stories through drawing. The project was conducted in collaboration with local organisations Accueil & Culture and Compagnons Bâtisseurs. The workshops were made together with Iranian dramaturg Elaheh Nouri. The work was exhibited at the Cité Internationale des arts in December 2025. The project was funded by the Finnish Culture Fund and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
First piloted during the FCINY residency in New York, the Climate Game is an ongoing participatory method used to gather and share insights into community resilience in cities facing the impacts of climate change.
The residency culminated in a workshop where we presented findings from our exploration of community-based climate adaptation practices in New York City. Participants were invited to imagine ways of reshaping their own surroundings, drawing inspiration from community-led initiatives such as local organisations, community gardens, and places like Cooper Square, home to New York’s first community land trust.
We mapped local knowledge of extreme weather events in a workshop titled “Let’s Talk About Weather”. The workshop was part of the Mellunmäki neighbuorhood celebration in May 2025, organised in together with Mellunmäki-liike, Kalliolan Setlementti and ME-talo.
Design practice Raivio&Bumann commissioned us to facilitate a participatory workshop for children and young people as part of their placemaking project in Meri-Rastila, East Helsinki. We invited the local youth to imagine their dream neighbourhood through collages.
The participants explored the cityscape with a focus on play, socialising with friends, and self-expression. Through the anecdotes shared during the workshop, we gained valuable insights into how the youth perceive their neighbourhood.
We discovered that places for play can be found in the most unexpected spots: at the locally famous climbing tree, in the breeze from an AC unit on the side of the local shopping centre, or at the cliffs where friends gather to meet up.
Raivio&Bumann gathered and synthesised the findings from the workshop, using them as valuable insights to inform city planning in the area. The workshop was part of the Meri-Rastila Block Party, and the finished collages were exhibited at the local cultural centre Merirasti.
We hosted a workshop as part of the Meri-Rastila Block Party 2025, where local residents were invited to write postcards from their favourite places in the neighbourhood. In these postcards, they shared memories of the area and reflected on the significance of their everyday environment.
The workshop was part of the Geography of Memories project funded by Alfred Kordelin Foundation and City of Helsinki.
Inspired by the work of the French Situationist movement, we organised a workshop using psychogeographic methods. Residents of Meri-Rastila were invited to draw memory maps of the neighbourhood, representing it not through precise cartography but through the memories and meanings that places hold in people’s lives.
The workshop was part of the Geography of Memories project funded by Alfred Kordelin Foundation and City of Helsinki.
In the spring of 2024, we collaborated with landscape architect Kaisla Rahkola on an architectural competition for a new multipurpose building in East Helsinki’s Meri-Rastila neighbourhood. The project aimed to integrate a school, daycare centre, and youth centre while balancing new construction with the thoughtful reuse of existing structures.
With support from FEMMA Planning, we held workshops with residents and school staff to assess the strengths and challenges of the current buildings. These sessions helped envision how the new complex could best serve its users.