CLUBS of the FUTURE

CLUBS of the FUTURE  operates in a time of transformation, in which practices of collaboration, alternative economies, other networks, common, civil spaces and societies are being tested and negotiated anew.

How can we readjust our priorities? Can we put the seemingly simple things at the center of our attention? How can we look closely at mutual dependencies? How can we open polyphonic, civil spaces, spaces for possibilities, test spaces, spaces for experiments and coexistence?

Two thirds of the approximately 1,800 cultural houses in the GDR were closed after the fall of the Wall. To this day there is still a gap that is used by right-wing initiatives. The heritage of the culture houses is ambivalent, on the one hand connected with a guided cultural practice, indoctrination and control, on the other hand a large part of the former GDR population identifies with the culture houses, which were also a realm of freedom, […] joy and creative self-awareness (Simone Hain).

Our kick-off project takes culture houses as a starting point to reflect on the importance of communal spaces in today’s societies. We look at models of communal spaces from different parts of the world, at European cultural houses and at the forerunners of the culture houses, the people’s houses. From these meeting points, which emerged as places of reform, emancipation and self-education across Europe as early as the 19th century, CLUBS of the FUTURE spans a space forreflection on current projects of community, commoning and reform.