In focus: The caravan of Denmark. Architecture against hidden fascism.
The Travelling Caravan project was based in Fredericia, a small town in Denmark where refugees were housed during the Syrian refugee crisis. A military Barracks was reused to house over 300 refugees, but the refugees mysteriously disappeared overnight never to return. The project looked at why this had happened.
This serves as part of a wider dialogue on the geopolitical history of Hospitality and talks directly to issues within Denmark.
Where did all of the refugees go?
We were invited to Fredericia by the kind people of Denmark to discuss hospitality. When we quickly discovered a dark secret during our project analysis: all of the refugees who were once living in the Fredericia Army Barracks, many of whom were there because of the Syrian refugee crisis, were recently exported to a small island just off the coast of Denmark.
Many of the locals in Frederica disliked refugees. There were campaigns to remove them from the city, this included racially charged events such as throwing stones and breaking windows. With Danish immigration minister Inger Støjberg saying shocking things like: “Certain people are unwanted and they will feel it.“ after these statements “Denmark’s government struck a deal to remove “unwanted” migrants to a remote uninhabited island. Venligiborne Movement, started by Fredericia locals existed to counteract this hostile energy, giving gifts and sanctuary to the Syrian refugees. Despite the Venliborne movement, there was a political push to undermine all efforts.
We felt uncomfortable knowing this act of social segregation had happened. In particular, we felt uncomfortable about the secrecy around it. We felt that it rhymed with efforts to create concentration camps at the turn of the century. The dire reality of this response was swept under the rug — most locals thought that the refugees just ‘disappeared one day” without asking further questions. Only a few realized the reality of what had been happening.
Despite how nice well designed and happy things seemed to be on the surface in Denmark. How attractive it was to live there. We realized that Denmark had a very dark shadow and it quickly became clear that the thing most presents was that thing that was absent. Ben Rea and Remi decided it was best to speak to this truth and look at what is unseen and visualize this and shed some light on it.
Speaking to the issue.
We wanted to show the reality of the struggle of displacement. But understood that by doing this we would likely be badly received, so we needed to tread carefully.
We realized that not talking to the issue, the shadow that Denmark maintained might mean a lack of cultural progress. While people are being greeted with the most inhospitable scenarios, exploring a rose-tinted vision made us feel nervous.
We sought to create a tangible architectural object — this meant the dialogue that was repressed could reemerge in another way, symbolically and in architectural form.
As a moving caravan forever journeying through the city, discussions can be held around it to bring into focus the struggle of displacement of these refugees. What is most damning about humanity and humankind is that violence and persecution are thousands of years old. So with all our advancements as economies, why do we continue this legacy of persecution and struggle in the modern-day?
What is a caravan?
The caravan is a Vernacular Typology and a form of architecture that has existed for millennia. It was chosen as a sign of the history of displacement.
At its heart, the caravan represents the shadow a nation casts, the displacement of those without land and housing. Moving a caravan isn’t just the movement of an object, rather it’s closer to a ceremony or a ritual as old as time itself for those forced to migrate.
A caravan is an architectural form but it is also a sign of the knowledge of the caravan user. A caravan user knows ALREADY that wherever it goes, it will likely need to move on again someday soon, and this knowledge is what gives the caravan a form as a piece of architecture.
The caravan is preparation for hostility — it signifies that wherever people go they might be met with social persecution and hostility again. For some people with money, it is a romantic choice to live in a moving caravan. It is freeing. To others it is a form of defense against a pattern is almost so predictable it can be assured. The movement of the caravan is as constant as the idea of land and land ownership itself.
The caravan infringes on archaic property rites and zoning restrictions that exist throughout the world. But these rites have been used to justify a history of persecution, displacement, and social neglect, not just within our lifetime, but for thousands of years. Isn’t it time for a change?
Perceptions.
As the project acted to pinpoint the geopolitical issues Denmark faced, the fabric of danish perceptions around lifestyle and ethnicity. Living in public is seen as dirty because any act of “Domestic scale activity in the public domain,” has been conditioned to be repulsive to many. Although the reality is that this is often forced. Within this context living itself is perceived as dirty and unclean, like hanging up laundry in a public area.
Although we directly spoke to taboo topics, many people in the community and in local politics remained disengaged. They often pretended not to fully understand what we were speaking about — or put blinkers on if the idea of changing their mindset of racial stigma was raised. Some know this struggle too well, members of Fredericia Venligborne a support community showed that some Danish people were interested in changing the direction of this discourse, they were key collaborators with us. And struggle against the far right in their country.
The caravan in Film.
The aim of the caravan was to build a discussion around what was clearly being left unsaid. Although whenever the topic was raised it became a prickly atmosphere. So in most cases, the very presence of the caravan, and the movement of it often felt like our efforts were just pissing in the wind. Despite this, a Film portrait of the Fredericia events By Lucas Bonnell — encapsulated an immortal scene with a conversation with a refugee still living in Denmark.
The scene shows the caravan being pushed through the city of Fredericia with the speaking over the top. It ends with the track ‘stranger on earth’.
Small town syndrome and the need to speak to issues to lead to social healing.
But how did it get this way? You could point to the politicians, you could point to the architecture. But with the fact that there are only 3 Black MEPs out of 600+ in power in Europe, shows that there is widespread racial marginalization still present in most major European countries. In some cases, if we are not careful this can lead to fascism. Because of this there is a very important duty to make work that speaks about it — and speaks directly to it.
Speaking to fascism to people who hold fascist views can make you feel like an outsider, in particular, fascism is accompanied by high levels of secrecy and malicious behavior. We might be gaslighted into thinking we are breaking social norms. It’s very important to look at Fascist propaganda in history, the people who align themselves with fascist views portrayed as ‘fitting in’ — this is the exact tension that is felt in Frederica with the caravan project.
The zoned town of Fredericia is almost diagrammatic of a situation of ‘over zoning and under- overlapping’ because its strict grid-plan stops people from serendipitously interacting and living together organically. Arguably one of the factors fostering a small town syndrome where people see an unrealistic image of ‘the other’ and begin to associate them as the root cause of abstract often unrelated issues.
The place where the caravan was finally stationed (and left) was the Fredericia Ungdommonshaus. A sort of old squat turned public-funded culture hub that supported counterculture. The caravan was useful to build dialogue in the communities.
Social healing through architecture?
There urgently needs to be processes of social healing. Although architecture might play a role in this, it’s unclear if architecture's function is to commemorate or to facilitate. In a time when contemporary housing and civic design is leading to people feeling isolated and fostering social tension, can we use built form differently — in a way that it makes the intangible more tangible?
When voices are repressed, can we use architectural interventions to make the difficult issues more tangible so that they can be understood and spoken about frankly? Can this lead to wider social healing?
The project didn’t change the world. The hospitality situation in Europe is getting a lot worse. But at least the project served as a reminder that we can show the voices of those who had been repressed, and we can make their struggle more tangible for people in Frederica, leading to broader discourse in the city and town.
In some cases, when an act has already been done, architecture's main use is not to accommodate people, but memories of people. It can exist to give dignity and visibility to a subject that would be difficult to see otherwise, and a people that have been given disrespect unfairly.
The project was led by myself, Ben rea, and Remi. And was completed with the help of a team of 17 participants (see the last image)
