Cooperation with the program “European Ethnology”, HU Berlin

This fieldwork-based seminar provides knowledeg in the investigation of the city and develops experiences further to explore urban spaces and social environments. The central feature of the seminar is an intensive fieldwork. Conceptualizing, realizing and disseminating urban ethnography are main learning aim. Besides, artistic strategies step in dialogue with rather conventional research formats.

The seminar is interdisciplinary and is directed equally to students of architecture and European ethnology. The aim is to focus on material and built environment as a result of cultural, social, political and economic negotiation processes. Students of both disciplines get to know in the mutual exchange urban processes from the perspective of the planner as well as of the researcher and are sensitized for the connections and contradictions. What are the common characteristics and differences of architecture and European ethnology and how these can be made fertile for interdisciplinary projects?

The participants observe on at least three days in November at different places of the ‚welcoming culture’ and commoning (german language cafés, commoning projects, gathering spaces, community spaces in housing projects etc). In the final presentation of the observations of the single "stages" contains the creation of a "shop-window" and its representation in the form of a physical model. The imaginary and theatrical moment of the space production should be drawn in this model and at the same time visible for a potential public.

The seminar is linked to the project "Arrival Infrastructures: Home/Heim" and takes place in cooperation with the program European ethnology of HU Berlin, Dr. Anja Schwanhäusser.