When the COVID pandemic prevented the annual study trip abroad, an alternative was developed: a workshop that turns its gaze inward, to the edges of the city of Zwolle.
The question is simple, yet layered: what is found on the boundary, what lies within, and what stretches beyond? The exercise seeks to expand perception, to uncover new relationships, and to place the body at the centre of spatial experience. The body becomes an instrument to think, to feel, to imagine.
Each exploration begins at a point along Zwolle’s municipal boundary. To this, each student adds one chosen student room and one building from the study trip guide. The architect takes the role of storyteller. Human gestures and actions within space become the vocabulary. Space is understood as an extension of the body, and the body as an extension of space. Rhythm, proportion, the play of light, and the presence of objects all become part of the narrative. The story is sketched not only with pen or line, but with the body itself.
Each student repeats this process three times. Collectively, these fragments form a mapping of Zwolle’s border as a single, continuous space: a psycho-geographic map of the city.
The final outcome is a film in which the study trip building, the student room, and the boundary of Zwolle all play vital roles. All four students are present within the film, inscribing themselves, through body, gesture, and story, into the spatial imagination of the city.
w/ christiaan de bruijne, jesse van Lienen