Ene Mene Muh und welche Stadt willst Du?

Spatial diagram, Films, Events, Publications

The debates and struggles in Berlin for civic involvement in urban development arise from an increasingly urgent desire for genuine participation. Ene Mene Muh und welche Stadt willst Du? poses questions regarding the theory and practice of participation and paths to social change in representative democracy. Using Sherry Arnstein’s “Ladder of Citizen Participation” (1969) as a starting point, interviews were conducted with members of the initiatives Stadt von Unten, 100% Tempelhofer Feld and Kotti & Co. Arnstein distinguishes between eight categories that—like the rungs of a ladder—range from manipulation and therapy, via informing, consultation and placation, to partnership, delegated power and citizen control. What role can the models used in the 1960s and ’70s play today? What desire impels the actors, and what kind of participation do their forms of resistance, demands and negotiations with politics aim for? The conceptual fields of “empowerment,” “eye level,” “citizen control” and “self-administration” which resulted from the conversations with the three initiatives house a subjective arrangement of historical and contemporary photographs, videos and publications in the exhibition space. This spatial diagram accompanied by documentary films is grasped as a discussion offer and reference system for the project’s event programme comprising radio readings, lectures and talks on the topics of urban commons, public property, housing policies, community organizing and direct democracy.

With contributions by
Sandra Bartoli, Niels Boeing, Daniela Brahm, Ascan Breuer, Irene Bude & Olaf Sobczak & Steffen Jörg, Frauke Burgdorff, Robert Burghardt, Paola Castillo & Tiziana Panizza, Gerd Danigel, Tashy Endres, Valeria Fahrenkrog, Joerg Franzbecker, Erik Göngrich, Ulrike Hamann, Anna Heilgemeir, Mathias Heyden, Renate Hildebrandt, Andrej Holm, Claudia Hummel, Sandy Kaltenborn, Jan Kuhnert, Heimo Lattner, Judith Laub, Johannes Ludwig, Annette Maechtel, Robert Maruschke, Kerstin Meyer, Susanna Raab, Elske Rosenfeld, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Ines Schaber, Enrico Schönberg, Boris Sieverts, Stavros Stavrides, Rouzbeh Taheri, Fabian Thiel, Florian Wüst a.o.

Ene Mene Muh und welche Stadt willst Du? is a project of the initiators of the Berlin Journals—On the History and Present State of the City. The ongoing series of small publications combines artistic, essayistic and activist practices. The journals address the social, cultural and economic changes in Berlin and other cities, and intervene in the urban political debates by historical reflection as well as by information on current affairs. After the exhibition, new issues of the Berlin Journals will be co-produced with the publishing house of the nGbK.

nGbK Project group: Joerg Franzbecker, Erik Göngrich, Heimo Lattner, Katja Reichard, Ines Schaber, Florian Wüst



Also starting in September:
Art in the Underground 2016-17: The Middle in Nowhere
Hauptbahnhof (line U55) / Cottbusser Platz (line U5)
The international open art competition run by the nGbK. With projects by Katrin Glanz, Claude Gomis & Saskia Köbschall, Laura Horelli, Anna Kowalska, Diana Lucas-Drogan, Ellen Nonnenmacher & Eva Randelzhofer, Various & Gould, Elizabeth Wood

Sunday, September 18, 4pm
Opening: Elizabeth Wood: A Migrant’s Journey
Platform Cottbusser Platz Underground station (U5)
5pm
Inauguration of “Place Internationale” and introduction of the selected artists
Open land near Cottbusser Platz (U5), Exit: Carola-Neher-Str./Auerbacher Ring

The Middle in Nowhere asks questions spatially, socially and politically about how decisions are made in the “centre” that have an effect “in the sticks” and about the potential of the periphery’s self-will.

www.kunst-im-untergrund.de

nGbK Project group: Jochen Becker, Anna Gogonjan, Eva Hertzsch, Folke Köbberling, Adam Page, Valeska Peschke