June 4–October 28, 2021
Last chance to see the Cohabitation exhibition. With over 30 artistic and design positions presenting non-human species as urban agents and reimagining how to live together in solidarity in future urban societies (please see the list of all participating artists here). Taking place at silent green Kulturquartier, Berlin until July 4, 2021; please book time slots here.
Additionally, a multifaceted event program, held in collaboration with various institutions at different locations in Berlin, extends the Cohabitation project well beyond the exhibition itself.
The series Cohabitation Discourse: Zoopolis Berlin brings together Berlin-based architects, designers, urban planners, and ecologists with international experts and artists to discuss multilayered approaches to addressing central questions raised by the project: How do we move on from the dominating anthropocentric view of the city? How can architectures and cities be designed to transcend exploitation, speculation, and utilitarian thinking in order to serve a multitude of human and non-human urban dwellers? How can new policy models account for the agency and interests of non-human actors? How can we counter new forms of the capitalization of nature and the instrumentalization of nature conservation, especially by right-wing political tendencies that play human and non-human life off against each other?
Cohabitation Urban Explorations offer public tours of locations in Berlin where cohabitation is being actively practiced. Building on everyday perspectives, including observations of animals in their immediate urban environment, the excursions illuminate complex interrelationships behind processes such as environmental destruction, resource exploitation, the decline of biodiversity, and globalized food production. Natural urban spaces are experienced as public spaces, and new forms of cohabitation based on a sense of solidarity are explored as solutions for the city of the future.
Upcoming events:
Urban Exploration – Spaces of Cohabitation, July 2, 2021, 4–6pm, silent green with Animalesque and others. The Animalesque Visiting School of the London Architectural Association (AA) in Berlin explores the potential of design for the cohabitation of humans and animals. For the outdoor area of silent green, the team of architects created a miniature landscape to be appropriated by a range of organisms, which they present in an exploration of silent green and its urban surroundings.
Urban Exploration – Organisms Democracy: Garden Executive, July 3, 2021, from 11am, Osloer Str. 107/108, Berlin with Club Real. A vacant building lot in Berlin’s Wedding district is the territory of Organisms Democracy. All power emanates from all the creatures that live there–whether squirrels, chestnut trees, or root-knot nematodes. On the day of the Garden Executive, visitors can participate in the implementation of the decisions that were made by the Parliament of Living Beings in a previous event.
Discourse – Economies of Cohabitation: July 3, 2021, 4–6pm, silent green Kulturquartier. Theo Deutinger & Charlotte Kaulen present their research project Pet-City, which illustrates the urbanistic and ecological footprint of the pet economy. Animali Domestici discuss their artistic mapping of Bangkok, which shows the human habitat with its infrastructures of production and disposal as an urban ecology that wild animals make use of.
Many more events will follow throughout 2021. Full program and tickets are available here.
Cohabitation is a project by ARCH+ in cooperation with silent green, funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Support for the Cohabitation Urban Explorations comes from the German Federal Agency for Civic Education. Cohabitation Discourse: Zoopolis Berlin is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. Cooperation partners include: Goethe-Institut Côte d’Ivoire; Kunstraum Innsbruck; Natural History Museum Berlin; Spreepark/Grün Berlin.
Artistic direction: Marion von Osten*, Christian Hiller, Alexandra Nehmer, Anh-Linh Ngo, Peter Spillmann
Team: Felix Hofmann, Friederike Kiko, Barbara Schindler, Jakob Walter, Linda Winkler, Franziska Zahl
Design: Modern Temperament/Oliver Klimpel, Till Sperrle
Translation: Alisa Kotmair
*Marion von Osten developed the concept with the curatorial team. She died in November 2020. This project is dedicated to her memory.
