people: Robin Durand

The UmArts Summer Exhibition 2025 celebrates our new Small Visionary Projects in art, architecture, design, sloyd and music. Researchers will present their practice-based work-in-progress investigating issues of sustainability and resilience at different scales. 

This summer we will present several new projects in the UmArts Research Studio including: Little things by Robin Durant; Enargeia by Edith Marie Pasquier; Maker Utopias by Cindy Kohtala, Magnus Wink, Rickard Åström and Sara Rylander; Pushing the Limits of Craft by Sara Rylander; and In-between the lines: an exploration of the street as a place of cultural negotiation by Richard Conway & Sangram Shirke. Architectural experiments around the UmArts Studio building will feature Healing the Wounds by Constanze Hirt; Tooling Ice and Sawdust by Elena Vazquez & Julio Diarte. Throughout the opening day there will be performances including Carla Colleveccio’s Performative Bodies; Göran Wretling’s investigation into AI as a Collaborative Partner in Music; and Edith Marie Pasquier´s Songs for the Slain Birds and Children- 2023 – 2025.

The UmArts Small Visionary Research Projects (SVP) provide seed funding to support research active staff to try out new ideas with big ambitions that contribute to the UmArts research community across the Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå School of Architecture, Department of Creative Studies in Education and Bildmuseet. 

Open 11 June to 18 June 12.00-16.00

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Opening Program 11 June 14.00-19.00

14.00-14.10 Opening Summer Exhibition: Welcome by Director Ele Carpenter and Thomas Wågberg, incoming Dean of the Faculty of Technical Science.

14.10-14.30 Performance by Edith Marie Pasquier 

14.30-15.00 Presentations by Robin Durand, Cindy Kohtala, Sara Rylander, Richard Conway

16.00-16.30 Performance Carla Collevechio, Black Box, Curiosum

17.00-17.20 Presentations by Elena Vazquez & Julio Diarte, Constanze Hirt

18.00 Musical performance by Göran Wretling

Robin Durand will give a lecture at Föreningen Byggnadskultur about his Small Visionary project Little things/Små grejer, followed by a workshop where participants will have the opportunity to contribute their own small things to the project researching everyday buildings with unexpected solutions in the area of Umeå Municipality.

Little things/Små grejer is a pocket-sized architecture guide that collects images of buildings in Umeå Municipality that have been rebuilt by their users in a way that changes the symbolic value of the architecture. The reconstructions are often small-scale and made by a single individual. The seemingly small changes manage to create a new architectural experience where the relationship to the body is very direct. They can also be read as traces of care for the building. This pocket guide will be a tool for critical reflection on everyday architecture in Umeå Municipality. It aims to look at so-called banal architecture with a renewed curiosity, revealing a sense of care, commitment and the relationship between architecture and its place.

Robin Durand is a Lecturer at Umeå School of Architecture, and the Little things/Små grejer project is supported by an UmArts Small Visionary Project award.

Before the workshop:

Walk around and focus on capturing (photographing) small, unexpected, but significant changes in buildings or environments. These can be renovations or small adjustments made by the users themselves, and which create a direct, new relationship between people and architecture. Try to capture images that express care, commitment or other signs of the relationship between the building and those who use it.

Select 1–3 images that you think best represent the changes or details you want to highlight. Send these images to Robin Durand’s email: robin.durand@umu.se. Images that have been emailed in will be discussed during the workshop. For inspiration and tips, you can read the article published on January 29, 2025 in Västerbottens-Kuriren. Link to the article is here.

Lecture and workshop are part of the 50th Anniversary of Building Conservation. Arrangement in collaboration with Folkuniversitet. Coffee sales during the break between lecture and workshop.

When: Tuesday, April 15th at 18.30-20.30
Venue: Aula, Folkuniversitetet

Små Grejer (Little Things) is a pocket architecture guide to Umeå Kommun which gathers together a collection of hybridized buildings where modifications intentionally made by its users transform the symbolic value of the architecture. These modifications are often small-scale and made by a single individual. Seemingly minor, they manage to offer a different architectural experience: where the relation to the body is very direct, along with the impact of the modifications. These modifcations or interventions can also be read as traces of care for the building.

This pocket guide will be a tool for a critical reflection on the architecture of the everyday in the area of the Umeå Kommun. It aims to look at so-called banal architecture with a renewed curiosity, revealing a sense of care, dedication and relation of the architecture to its place.

For the last Um…Crits for the semester we will talk crowdsourcing, artist books and photography when following the creative process of Robin Durand’s SVP Project Små grejer (Little Things). Durand is developing a pocket guide of so-called banal architecture with a renewed curiosity, revealing a sense of care, dedication and relation of the architecture to its place.

Små Grejer (Little Things) is a pocket architecture guide to Umeå Kommun which gathers together a collection of hybridized buildings where modifications intentionally made by its users transform the symbolic value of the architecture. These modifications are often small-scale and likely made by a single individual. Seemingly minor, they manage to offer a different architectural experience: where the relation to the body is very direct, along with the impact of the modifications. These interventions on buildings can also be read as traces of care.

This pocket guide will be a tool for a critical reflection on the architecture of the everyday in the area of the Umeå Kommun. It aims to look at so-called banal architecture with a renewed curiosity, revealing a sense of care, dedication and relation of the architecture to its place.