After receiving more than twelve emails about this event, we finally did it. The “informatiemarkt” at de Nieuwe Jutter in Rivierenwijk, a market hosted by the municipality for residents and local entrepreneurs to inform them about the upcoming developments in Merwede. Since I’ve started this project I've been spending a lot of time in buurthuizen, common spaces, churches, etc, which are always multi-functioning spaces and I came to love them really. A space inside a building with walls but still you have the feeling that you’re standing in the middle of society, always looking for little clues or traces of other communities. Also the space where our “booth” for the informatiemarkt was placed was apparently a space that also hosts the local line-dancing society, LOVING it!

Me and Merve discussed beforehand the idea asking people to take a snapshot of their favorite or least favorite part of public space and we would send them as postcards to the municipality, we brought a very heavy printer to the location incl glossy paper for our postcards but unfortunately we discovered 15 minutes beforehand that we were out of toner. So we improvised, took out our color markers and paper and made a cloth where we would invite people to give us feedback about their wishes, complaints and everything in between. We were, as always, the odd one out between all the architectural renderings and Gemeente Utrecht signage. And actually this worked well, people felt invited to talk to us, vent, laugh, complain and share ideas about their neighborhood. It became clear very quickly which themes are important for the residents at Rivierenwijk and what is happening; green, connection in the neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods combined with a shared irritation about litter and the local garbage point. We ran into some familiar faces from previous sessions at De Pomp, selfies were taken with Merve and the organizers of the Gierzwaluwenplantsoen, a very beautiful initiative who wanted to share the latest news with Merve about an artwork that was placed in their garden. Also interesting was that residents recognised exactly who wrote what on our paper; “Ah I see B. already passed by” which says a lot how active the people who visit this evening. As these events unfortunately get attended mostly by people of a certain age we were determined to also hear from other voices. Like T, a 7-year old boy who shared he was very upset about the new plans because it meant his playground (which he call “het schip”) will disappear! He was however very appreciative of the pink lights on the newly designed bridge. Murals, which a visitor pointed out are very efficient and nice because they don’t take in any space (fair enough), dialogue, relatable artworks and the will to connect to each other seems to be the big consensus of tonight so I think that is very clear. Our evening ended with amazing sandwiches, thanks to the catering of De Nieuwe Jutter!