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Film & Theatre & Performing Arts, Creative Arts and Design

Visualising Urban Resilience through Film

When:

18 August - 22 August 2025

School:

Berlin Summer University of the Arts

Institution:

Berlin University of the Arts

City:

Berlin

Country:

Germany

Language:

English

Credits:

1 EC

Fee:

590 EUR

Interested?
Visualising Urban Resilience through Film

About

Until the fall of the wall, West-Berlin was known as a tax haven and utopia for free spirits. After its reunification cheap housing and undeveloped spaces offered a vast playground for creatives and communities of all kinds. Its history left a unique mark on the city, traces of which can still be found today in the form of large-scale housing estates, electronic music clubs or communal gardening projects, amongst others. And despite their rapid disappearance and contested existence, there is still an array of places that seek to enable the transformation of communal and urban spaces now. The workshop will sensitise participants to the “utopian cadavers” and transformative spaces found in Berlin through the walking practice of flânerie in relevant areas, drawing on Mirjana
Mitrovic’s artistic research. Grounded in the flâneur after Walter Benjamin, Mitrovic’s practice de- and reconstructs the figure from a postcolonial and feminist point of view. This perspective is then combined with filmmaking as a critical documentary practice, theoretically guided and with hands-on practical advice by Jan-Holger Hennies. This covers the development of visual narratives to basic editing. Throughout the workshop participants will develop and accomplish their own short video projects that experiment along the interstices and connections between urban resilience, utopian imaginaries and space. Hence, participants will learn how to engage with urban space in an innovative way and act upon their reflections through the use of (audio)visual media, creating an output that can be further shared.

Course leader

Mirjana Mitrovic and Jan-Holger Hennies

Course aim

Through flânerie the workshop sensitises participants to utopian cadavers and transformative places in Berlin. Participants will then create short videos that experiment along these interstices of urban resilience, utopian imaginaries and space.

Today’s world is shaped by multiple crises that question the way we live. Especially in densely populated areas this urges us to transform existing structures and to come up with creative, communal and sustainable solutions. Creating smart, sponge or future-proof cities and nurturing urban resilience are but some of the possible paths to take in this respect. Here, the intricate interplay between community and potential utopian imaginary takes on a special role and allows for a critical examination of past, present and future urban transformation processes. What do former utopias look like today, what kinds of futures can we currently imagine and what does that say about our present?

Fee info

Fee

590 EUR

Interested?

When:

18 August - 22 August 2025

School:

Berlin Summer University of the Arts

Institution:

Berlin University of the Arts

Language:

English

Credits:

1 EC

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