What do upheavals do to a city and how can futures be shaped?
Researchers, artists and activists will come together from Monday, August 18, for the two-week Viadrinicum summer school at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). In academic, artistic and participatory formats, they will be exploring the topic of "Urban Dis/locations. Ruptures and Reimaginations", they deal with (re)ruptures in the urban fabric. In several workshops, participants will explore the twin city and develop their own projects and ideas from a documentary and urban planning perspective. In addition, the public is invited to help shape several events.
How are designs for the future of a city created? And who can take part? At Zukunftsplatz near the Stadtbrücke bridge, it will be possible to think about and discuss this even before the start of the summer school on Saturday, August 16, at 6:00 p.m. At the public and free event, interested parties can come together for an inspiring exchange, live music and a meal together.
Interested parties are cordially invited to the opening lecture of the eleventh Viadrinicum on the following Monday, August 18 at 6:15 p.m. in the Viadrina's Logensaal, Logenstraße 11. Prof. Dr. Friederike Landau-Donnelly from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin will speak in her lecture "Becoming a #PoeticAcademic: Dis/Locating the Writing Self in Urban Space Explorations" about the practices of writing in academia, especially in the context of urban research. The lecture will look at a variety of artistic-research-inspired projects in Sweden, Italy and Canada that seek ways to translate, communicate and thus make empirical data readable differently. Based on these research projects, Friederike Landau-Donnelly will offer some preliminary thoughts on a spatial theory.
In cooperation with the city of Frankfurt (Oder) as part of the "My City of the Future" project, a temporary architecture will be created on Zukunftsplatz, which will be used for various event formats: On Wednesday, August 20, the summer school invites all hungry people to "Cooking Franky O." on Zukunftsplatz from 6:30 p.m. An open-air movie night awaits all guests on Friday, August 22 at 8:30 p.m. There will be at least one movie about Frankfurt (Oder) (Spoiler: It's not Half Staircase.). Developing images with international students – Viadrina graduate Roman Boichuk will be taking interested parties on an excursion through his photo lab on Sunday, August 24 at Zukunftsplatz. Places are limited, so please register by August 20 by e-mail to viadrinicum@europa-uni.de.
Daily from August 18 to 29 (with the exception of Sunday, August 24), (street) furniture will be built from wood at Zukunftsplatz from 11:00 a.m. Anyone who wants to can take part. Younger guests will also get their money's worth in the second summer school week. From August 26 to 29, a craft workshop for children (1.5 hours each) will be offered from 4:00 p.m. Another public event is the final presentation of the results of the summer school by the international participants on Saturday, August 30, from 4:00 p.m. on Future Square. They have made films, analyzed (historical) maps and created artistic interventions in Frankfurt's urban space.
This year, the Viadrinicum summer school is taking place for the eleventh time. Geographically, the focus is on countries of the Eastern Partnership and, in a broader sense, Central and Eastern Europe. Methodologically, the concept combines academic and non-academic formats and promotes dialog between different types of knowledge from academia, civil society and the arts. The format has met with a great response. There were more than 550 applications for the 35 places this year. This year's participants come from 16 countries, including Armenia, India, Brazil, Japan, Kosovo, Ukraine and Italy. Building on the discussions surrounding the concept of the learning city in previous editions, the eleventh Viadrinicum will focus on (re)constructions and ruptures in the urban fabric.
The Viadrinicum summer school is a cooperation with the Center for East European and International Studies (ZOiS, Berlin) and the Eberhard Schöck Foundation (Baden-Baden) as well as the Kyiv School of Economics and the General Student Committee (AStA) of the Viadrina.