Bus stops, public bathrooms, benches, trash bins, billboards...For the last 30 years, street furniture and outdoor advertising have defined the grammar of our cities. The ‘Hacking Urban Furniture’ project wishes to examine this sector, which so strongly defines the public space in our cities: In times of private-public partnerships (PPP), requests for increased citizen-participation, new production techniques and fantasies of economic optimization, how can such prominent public objects be designed, produced, maintained and sustained differently? What can participation processes, which are prototypical for the handling of public space, look like?

The ZK/U (Center for Art and Urbanistics) warmly invites you to the public opening conference ‘Hacking Urban Furniture’, a long-term research and practice project.
On the 7th and 8th of April 2017 artists, urban researchers, administrators, politicians, activists and citizens get together, to talk about the current state and future of urban furniture.
The conference is the starting point for the development of five types of artists, an open idea competition, participation models in ‘case studies’, film series and research groups. Besides lectures about the interaction with public space in the global South, an introduction into urban research debates, and panels with experts, activists and politicians, the conference offers workshops by artists and scholars.

Detailed information will soon be available at www.hackingurbanfurniture.net and www.zku-berlin.org

To register for the conference please click here: https://goo.gl/forms/FVQo1bnDXdnFMCRs2

Confirmed participants: Markus Ambach (artist / MAP Projekte), Ben Blazy (designer  / Kunsthochschule Weißensee), Jan Bovelet (architectural theory Uni Kassel), Konrad Braun (architect / urban researcher / openBerlin e.V.), Mary Dellenbaugh (urban researcher), Fred Dewey (author / Neighborhood Councils Movement / Los Angeles, Matthias Einhoff (artist / KUNSTrePUBLIK), Satya Gummuluri (urban researcher / Surfatial Kollektiv Bangalore), Christian Hasucha (artist), Sabine Knierbein (urbanistics / TU Wien), Philip Horst (artist / KUNSTrePUBLIK), Jan Körbes (artist), Alireza Labeshka (urban researcher / Raaf Project Teheran), Omar Nagati (architect / urban researcher / Cluster Cairo), Mobasher Niqui (architect / mbnq.studio / Teheran), Joanne Pouzenc (researcher / CollegeLab), Alex Römer (artist / Constructlab), Martin Schwegmann (architect / Kulturmanager / MitOst e.V.), Raumlaborberlin (architecture / Berlin), Harry Sachs (artist / KUNSTrePUBLIK), Sixten Sanne-Göransson (artist), Laura Sobral (architect / The City Needs You Institute, Brasil).

Participating Artists: constructLab, Umschichten, Markus Ambach, Raumlabor, Christian Hasucha, KUNSTrePUBLIK (Einhoff, Horst, Sachs)

 
Hacking Urban Furniture is a project by KUNSTrePUBLIK (www.kunstrepublik.de)
In cooperation with: bbk Kulturwerk
The Kick-off-conference is funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
The art projects / ideas competition are funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.