The work of pho­tog­ra­ph­er and film­mak­er Jan Dirk van der Burg shows trails: nar­row and unpaved paths cre­at­ed by being walked or rid­den over again and again. They fol­low the organ­ic move­ments of peo­ple who move through the world on foot or by bicy­cle. In this way, they call into ques­tion the sharply and clear­ly delin­eat­ed spaces cre­at­ed on the draw­ing board by infra­struc­ture and city plan­ners. Here, trails rep­re­sent resis­tance, small ges­tures of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. They protest against this will to order and design, which blan­kets every­thing and yet makes no sense in dai­ly life. They appear wher­ev­er the plan­ners of the still car friend­ly world did not reck­on with peo­ple who have a mind of their own.

Link to Audio guide

Laris­sa Fassler builds and draws space. Yet noth­ing here is cleaned up or ordered accord­ing to scale. In the large-for­mat draw­ings of cities, she shows us what we expe­ri­ence when we walk over traf­fic islands, through under­pass­es, and pas­sages, or into the entrances of build­ings. The artist over­lays the built space with appro­pri­a­tions. She observes and walks through the space over and over again, col­lect­ing and map­ping what she finds. This is also the case with her work Kot­ti (revis­it­ed). The many frag­ments lay­ered on top of each oth­er tell sto­ries of a com­plex space that proud­ly says: »I am city. I am nei­ther easy to under­stand nor easy to plan. I will defend myself if you seek to ques­tion my exis­tence.« The big col­or­ful pic­ture calls for plan­ning to take care of and work with lived space instead of against it. Because where is this city going to go if it has to leave here?

Link to Audio guide

Every last Fri­day of the month, cyclists meet in both large and small cities to take to the streets in con­voy and as sheer mass. The prin­ci­ple of this gath­er­ing uses a rule of the road traf­fic reg­u­la­tions accord­ing to which a group of at least twelve cyclists is con­sid­ered a vehi­cle and can, there­fore, pass through a traf­fic light that turns red. Those who cycle in front decide where to go. The cyclists want to draw atten­tion to the fact that even today, the car-friend­ly city from the last cen­tu­ry is still a real­i­ty in many places. Thus, Crit­i­cal Mass is a peace­ful and sol­idary protest against the hege­mo­ny of motor­ized traf­fic in urban plan­ning worldwide.

Link to Audio guide

In the works of Matthias Wermke and Mis­cha Leinkauf, every­day sit­u­a­tions, prac­tices, and reg­u­la­tions are play­ful­ly, almost inci­den­tal­ly, ques­tioned. The swing, which appeared at var­i­ous loca­tions in Berlin and then moved on again, hung from street signs, scaf­fold­ing, and struc­tur­al ele­ments. It con­tin­u­ous­ly appro­pri­at­ed small parts of the sur­round­ing com­mer­cial­ized and pri­va­tized city, mak­ing them its own. For just a moment, how­ev­er brief, a new (pub­lic) space came into being—where there pre­vi­ous­ly was none. By occu­py­ing squares, nich­es, sites, and objects that nor­mal­ly serve oth­er func­tions, it recon­quered the city gen­tly and qui­et­ly, but no less emphat­i­cal­ly. Thus, the mobile swing can be read as a warn­ing. Because if pub­lic space dis­ap­peared com­plete­ly, will every­one who wants to swing have to bring their own swing with them?

Link to Audio guide

Skate­board­ing is a per­for­ma­tive cri­tique of the con­struct­ed world, some say. This still rel­a­tive­ly young sport, whose main set­tings were and are urban non-places, devel­ops new under­stand­ings and oth­er inter­pre­ta­tions of space. This world—whether gigan­tic infra­struc­tures, side­walks, emp­ty swim­ming pools, enor­mous house-lined streets, tun­nels, or oth­er con­crete deserts of the mod­ern age—is revealed by pho­tog­ra­ph­er and skater Rubén Dario Kleimeer in his images. Kleimeer unlocks mul­ti-lay­ered mean­ings of space through the nav­i­ga­tion and appro­pri­a­tion of built struc­tures. In doing so, he is not look­ing for answers or solu­tions to urban plan­ning or social prob­lems. Instead, he invites us to search with him, ride with him, and then think together—from unfa­mil­iar perspectives—about what the city of the future could look like, what it could be, and how it could be navigated.

Link to Audio guide

Even if Min­istry of Space sounds quite offi­cial, it is not a state-run min­istry. Con­cealed behind the name is a small group of activists com­mit­ted to social jus­tice. Thus, the group fights for a city that ben­e­fits all those who live there. They fight against cor­rupt prac­tices, the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of pub­lic mon­ey, and—as they argue—abuses of pow­er by polit­i­cal play­ers. In this way, the activists mon­i­tor, ana­lyze, and crit­i­cal­ly com­ment upon large-scale urban devel­op­ment projects by transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the pri­va­ti­za­tion of pub­lic assets. They scru­ti­nize the con­struc­tion of lux­u­ry res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties or shop­ping cen­ters. Through their work, the group thus sup­ports a broad protest cul­ture that demands civ­il soci­ety inclu­sion in urban pol­i­cy events.

Link to Audio guide

The film Swim City shows us how vital rivers are for the well-being of the entire urban pop­u­la­tion. Whether in the Danube baths in Vien­na, the botan­i­cal gar­dens of Tbil­isi, or the rivers in Basel and Zurich—everywhere peo­ple are jump­ing into the water on warm and even cold days. In oth­er cities, too, where rivers are only just being redis­cov­ered as open spaces, ini­tia­tives are being formed to raise aware­ness of the val­ue of water in the city. This, how­ev­er, goes far beyond the mere pop­u­lar­iz­ing of swim­ming. They are also move­ments that fight for pub­lic access to water against the back­ground of increas­ing pri­va­ti­za­tion of riv­er banks. They make it clear that rivers must be tak­en seri­ous­ly as impor­tant arter­ies in larg­er eco­log­i­cal structures.

Link to Audio guide