Assemble

Lecture featuring members of the London-based collective, winners of the 2015 Turner Prize.

Response by Nicolai Ouroussoff

Assemble are a collective of 15 whose work addresses the relationship between people and the built environment. Assemble take a hands on, collaborative approach, and whilst their work usually includes design it rarely starts or ends there, often employing a range of means from the social to the infrastructural to make spaces which enable independence; self-authorship, creativity and difference. Assemble started working together informally in 2009, and delivered their first project, the Cineroleum in 2010. Working in their free-time and around other jobs, they built the Cineroleum from borrowed, recycled and industrial materials, with around 200 friends, volunteers and passers-by. The collective of 15 which was established through this project has retained a non-hierarchical structure and interdisciplinary ethos and now works across the UK, for both independent community groups and public bodies, and on both self-initiated and commissioned projects.