Berlin, Germany

The City Never Sleeps

Together with the participants, we want to explore the urban space and develop our own tools for the artistic realisation of what we perceive.

Berlin offers many territories and thematic starting points for artistic field research in the sense of the theme called for the Summer University 2024: Territories in which architecture functions as a political statement are just as present in Berlin as the demarcation lines of the formerly divided city. The control of the respective opposite sphere of influence has also left territorial traces with surveillance areas. Brownfields or areas whose use is once again up for discussion today lead from contemporary historical to current urban development discourses. At the same time, there are also brownfields whose reconceptualisation and conversion have already been completed. In addition to areas associated with historical and political issues, topographical territories also come into question for the workshop: rivers, canals and railway lines separate urban areas from one another. Numerous bridges and tunnels create connections that in turn already represent interspaces and can be starting points for artistic fieldworks.

On the basis of concrete site-related questions, the participants will develop their own artistic response. This will take place in individual, pair or group work lasting several hours. What kind of structures mark territorial borders? What colour are they, what material and what size? How are they built? It is about perceiving what surrounds us: about demonstrations of power and insignia of territorial borders in urban space, but above all about the potential of interspaces and transitions, which are to be discovered playfully by means of artistic technique

Course leader

Ina Bierstedt and Claudia Beelitz.

Fee info

EUR 580: EUR 580