Exclusion and displacement are closely entwined with entrepreneurial urban policy and are often consciously used as strategies to transform the city in terms of globally oriented ideals and economic interests. These alter both the physical qualities of public spaces and the social interactions among city dwellers. More and more people are affected by these complex processes, but only rarely do they have a say themselves. “The Fragmented City” therefore focuses on the perspectives and subjective experiences of the excluded.
In “The Future of our Cities,” a documentary broadcast on ARTE in 2013, urban planner Jan Gehl called for access to public spaces as a basic human right. In the neoliberal or entrepreneurial city, however, access is threatened by privatisation, gentrification and commodification, as well as by increasing regulation, exclusion and displacement. The homeless, street drinkers, migrants and other undesirables are increasingly being driven out of public spaces. While many city planners and sociologists are demanding greater heterogeneity and diversity in order to keep the city “alive,” city administrations often work in exactly the opposite direction. Increased cooperation between cities, private investors and globally active companies has led to the loss of what makes a vibrant city: free and open interaction between people from different classes and cultures. The core of every “Open City” is its public and potentially accessible spaces.
Situated in selected public spaces in Berlin, Graz and Zurich, the project aims to render visible the widest possible range of exclusion processes. Its key questions are: Where do exclusion processes take place and of what kind are they? Whom do such processes affect and how are they experienced? How do they become evident, i.e. how do they affect public spaces? These questions are addressed from two perspectives: that of the excluded and that of those responsible for the city (urban planners, politicians, district managers, etc.).
Three methodological approaches are applied in three different media. First, video walks through public spaces, with excluded people acting as guides, reveal subjective perspectives on exclusion and repression, which will be supplemented and contrasted with the “official” view of architects, politicians or social workers. Second, a photographic documentation, which depicts in artistic form the changes in the sensually perceptible atmospheres of public spaces resulting from the visibility of the “uninvolved” (Ranciere). A third approach focuses on participatory and performative aspects. One thematic focus in this respect is “loitering.”
The project is situated within a transdisciplinary field spanning scientific and artistic practices and thus makes an important contribution to artistic urban research. Finding and results will be presented at an exhibition as well as in an e-book and, if applicable, also in the form of a street newspaper.