Contributions ///

The exhibition contributions are divided into five fields of action, which correspond to the spatial arrangement of the exhibition and to the chapters in the catalog:

1. Retreat / De-Urbanization /// This chapter presents forms of urban retreat. The first part discusses possible images of the city; the second part focuses on processes of retreat, perishing, ferality, and dematerialization.

"shutting down": Technologies of shutting down dying cities (Bauhaus Dessau Foundation)

"planting": An attempt to find an economically sustainable usage for abandoned slab-construction settlements: cultivating delicacy mushrooms. (Johannes Touché, journalist and architect, Berlin and the Berlin designer group anschlaege.de with Axel Watzke, Christian Lagé, Steffen Schuhmann)

"leaving it be": Walling off abandoned apartment buildings instead of tearing them down. (LetzelFreivogel, architects, Halle; Peter Arlt, sociologist, Linz; and others)

 "commuting": Seasonal city for transnational commuters/part-time citizens. (Michael Zinganel, artist, Vienna)

"ruralization": Performance in which a herd of cattle is brought to the inner city of Liverpool for two weeks and the possibilities of acting on one's own initiative are examined. (Paul Cotter, filmmaker; Gareth Morris, architect; Heidi Rustgaard, performance artist; Eike Sindlinger, architect; Ulrike Steven, architect; and Susanne Thomas, choreographer; all London)

"suburbanization": Development of curricular material for schools and of explanatory material for work with district initiatives in Detroit, aiming at sensitizing people to the specific economic and urbanistic connections between prospering environs and impoverished inner cities; exemplification by means of an analysis of the development of a particular block over the last thirty years. (Interboro Urban Planning + Design: Tobias Armborst, architect; Daniel D'Oca, city planner; Georgeen Theodore, architect; Christine Williams, city planner; and the Center for Urban Pedagogy: Damon Rich, architect; and Rosten Woo, political scientist; all New York)

"typologization": Morphology/typology of site and space. (Shrink to Fit, architects, Berlin)

"marketing": Translocal city Bitterfeld-Wolfen. (Urbanista, artists, Hamburg)

"going feral": Sensitization of perception to the ecological wealth of fallow areas, in the example of bird migration in the Liverpool/Manchester region. (Annalie Riches, architect, London; Cathy Hawley, architect, London; and Patricia Hawley, microbiologist, Norfolk)

"growth": The intermediary city Halle-Leipzig. (SMAQ, architects, Rotterdam)


2. Re-Interpretation / Re-Appropriation /// Space and material that have grown superfluous are reinterpreted and reappropriated and take on a different function and meaning. This creates something culturally new.

"appropriation": Narrative and analytical approaches to the theme of giving away land, taking the empty spaces in the Manchester/Liverpool region as an example. (Stefanie Bremer, city planner, Dortmund; Dirk E. Haas, geographer/city planner, Essen; Päivi Kataikko, architect, Essen; Henrik Sander, city planner, Dortmund; Andreas Schulze Bäing, regional planner, Liverpool; and Boris Sieverts, artist, Cologne)

"redefinition": Redefining and newly defining the surplus of old structures and materials. Realization in Dessau. (Heimo Zobernig, artist, Vienna)

"recycling": Work with society's marginal groups and with socially and economically underprivileged people to initiate economic processes through recycling and motivation to form mini-economies operated on the responsibility of the interested parties. (Dan Peterman, artist, Chicago)

"entrepreneurship": New entrepreneurs in urban culture. (Thomas Busch, architect, Dessau; and Bastian Lange, social geographer, Berlin)


3. Reorganization /// The transformation of shrinking cities requires new forms of societal organization and interaction. This leads to new forms of spatial conception, planning, and design.

"discovering": The encounter of different cultures and different political, economic, and cultural systems and the resulting different strategies for use in shrinking cities - especially in eastern Leipzig. (Tanja Ostojic, artist, Berlin/Belgrade)

"employing": Temporary work station for the unemployed. (Wochenklausur, artists, Vienna)

"empowerment": What alternative strategies and forms of self-organization do women develop when paid work, which was an essential identity-providing factor precisely for East German women, is less and less available? And what forms of immaterial - and material - spatial production can be derived from these strategies? (Isa Rosenberger, artist, Vienna)

"conquering": Renewed visibility of groups that have already been excluded from the "successful", employed part of society. A search along Streetcar Line Nr. 5 from Halle Heide to Bad Dürrenberg in Saxony-Anhalt. (Kristina Leko, artist, New York/Berlin/Zagreb)

"survival": Survival handbook for shrinking cities. (Wolfgang Engler, sociologist, Berlin)

"supporting": Debate about the generation of economic value in shrinking cities. (Superflex, artist, Copenhagen)

"bidding farewell": City models for older people. (L21, architects, Leipzig)


4. Rules /// Urban space can no longer be planned, but is shaped by societal rulebooks. New rules of the game for urban actors lead to a different kind of urban development. In spatially bounded special zones, society experiments with deviating sets of rules.

"exclusion": Special welfare city (Jesko Fezer, Stephan Lanz, and Uwe Rada, urbanists, Berlin); special economic zones as exterritories, taking a Chinese-administered Halle region as an example. (Johannes Fiedler, architect, Graz; Jördis Tornquist, architect, Graz; Yueshin Lin, graphic designer, Graz; James Jolly, economist, Graz; and Lea Titz, photographer, Graz)

"penetration/undermining": Subversive strategies to undermine immigration law. (Michael Engel, architect, Dresden; Peter Ille, architect, Dresden; Uta Oettel, photographer and communication designer, Potsdam; Ulrich Trappe, architect, Dresden; and Brigitta Ziegenbein, architect, Dresden)

"planning": Shrinking planning cultures in the East (Holger Schmidt, city planner, Dessau); proactive planning methods of shrinking in the West. (Kees Christiannse, ETH Zurich)


5. Identity / Communication /// Perception, image, and identity shape not only our idea of the city, but also the development of the city itself. City planning and site development increasingly devote themselves to such "soft" mental site factors.

"remembering": The significance of history and its identity-providing function. The search for a new identity and the necessity for new self-designs due to breaks in biographies in shrinking cities. Examined site: Wismar. (Wiebke Loeper, artist, Berlin)

"creating identifications": Seeking lost identifications in once-booming regions. A critical examination of the past and its effects on the present. (Tadej Pogacar, artist, Ljubljana)

"turning it into a museum": Critical-ironic commentary on the use of statistics; in place of statistical representation, what is individual is treated like a museum piece. (Eva Grubbauer, architect, Graz; Pia Grubbauer, biologist, Vienna; Joost Meuwissen, city planner, Amsterdam/Vienna; Wouter Vanstiphout, architectural historian, Rotterdam/Berlin; participating: Martin Luce, architect, Hamburg; and Johannes Weisser, architect, Rotterdam)

"representing": The global media presence of Detroit is examined. (Ursula Faix, architect, Innsbruck; Kathrine Nyhus, architect, Oslo; Anders Melsom, architect, Oslo; Ethan Zuckerman, philosopher, Cambridge)

"describing": Production of a film with Leipzig citizens; it will document what exists and stage an ideal city space. (Anke Haarmann and Irene Bude, artists, Hamburg)

"publishing": Open Soap TV Staßfurt (Visomat, artists, Berlin)

Also (not yet categorized):

"activating": Initiating group engagement, taking heterogeneous groups into consideration. Motivation for self-confident self-articulation and critical participation. (Christoph Schäfer, artist, Hamburg)

"politicizing": Provocation to develop opinions and to take part in political debates. (Andreas Siekmann, artist, Berlin)




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