The Korean artists MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho create works that address elemental questions concerning contemporary civilization in light of political, socioeconomic, and ecological changes. The exhibition project News From Nowhere, which they jointly initiated in 2012, is premised on a post-apocalyptic scenario: humanity has been wiped out almost entirely and is forced to reconsider long-held convictions that may no longer be tenable. The project is designed as a steadily evolving ensemble; earlier iterations were presented in Kassel (documenta 13) and Chicago. For their exhibition News From Nowhere: Zürich Laboratory, MOON & JEON collaborated with Urban-Think Tank in developing the idea of a mobile agora that also underlies the exhibition architecture.

The work of Urban-Think Tank has centered on the dynamic cities of the Sur Global. These are spaces of ordered delirium and yawning inequality, defined by a fluid mode of development and a population that grows with every driving impulse. If cities are simultaneously lived and dreamed, then our task in imagining the teeming metropolises of 2050 is to envisage how social needs can best be translated into physical form.

2050: Designing Our Tomorrow

‘El Sur Global: Future Resilient City’

Publications

The center of gravity is shifting to the cities of the South, moving definitively below the equator. This shift is creating a new political and social equator – a messy, snaking line defined not by latitude, but by the global distribution of wealth. It skirts around neighborhoods, creating pockets of unimaginable affluence in Rio de Janeiro and zones of unexpected deprivation in Athens. South of this equator, urban communities are growing faster than ever anticipated, in the process posing challenges we are struggling to comprehend and address.

Now Urbanism: The Future City Is Here

‘Forget About Utopia’

The most prevalent contemporary model of social housing – government-owned and constructed spaces that are rented to the public at affordable, subsidized rates – is only one of many possible approaches to providing dwellings for those members of society excluded from traditional property markets. In the vein of alternative social housing, we see the possibility for government to help establish conditions for the construction of homes without actually providing the home itself. We feel the key is balancing self-determination with top-down planning.

Title	News From Nowhere: Zürich Laboratory
Authors	Alfredo Brillembourg, Hubert Klumpner & Daniel Schwartz
Release	August 2015
Editors	Heike Munder & Raphael Gygax
Design	Studio Marie Lusa
Publisher	JRP\|Ringier
Pages	144

‘Breaking the Binaries’

News From Nowhere: Zürich Laboratory