Softened Sealed.Scapes aims to share the beauty, evolution, and  appropriation of floorscapes in the context of urban open spaces in  Ghana. The work combines three perspectives: conceptual/poetic,  phenomenological/ investigative, and projective/speculative. A  collaged reflection on sealed surfaces, such as buildings, roads, and  parking lots, begins with an initial spatio-programmatic and  sociocultural (anthropocentric) interest in exploring their (human)  uses and appropriations. Later investigations have focused on  ecologies and beyond-human-centered readings of sealed surfaces,  addressing their environmental impact in relation to unsealed soil.  

The old airfield in the city of Tamale, northern Ghana, is a sealed  terrain that has lost its original functionality and is now a floorscape  full of potential. Baerbel Mueller has been investigating this  overlooked but familiar site. In its eccentric proportions, openness,  and horizontality, the airfield is an asphalt relic, an eroded, sealed  surface distinctly bordered by buildings and a growing neighborhood  on one side, and running wild and co-inhabited by a diversity of  species on the other. Through a project that started with one-to-one  applied research and experimental interventions by the [A]FA lab  team in dialogue with the community, this site is being designed  as unique public space to serve both the surrounding community  and the entire city of Tamale. For the installation in CAB 5, visual  and audio material from Mueller’s archive of artistic research and  teaching are interwoven to create a narrative of fragments.

In collaboration with Oliver Alunovic, Daniil Zhiltsov, and Linus Miller.