ARCH+ developed the project Cohabitation as an exhibition, event and publication project. The Cohabitation project took the central and ambivalent role of cities in global environmental degradation as an opportunity to rethink the coexistence of human and non-human living beings in urban spaces: at the interface of art, science, architecture and urban planning, design approaches were developed for the city of the future - a city in which non-human forms of life are accorded a significant role and living together in solidarity becomes possible.
The project addressed the issue of urban cohabitation of different species in diverse formats, including an exhibition at silent green Berlin (June to July 2021), discussion formats and urban explorations. The urban explorations with artists, experts and activists from environmental protection, architecture, biology, biodiversity and urban planning led to different sites of interspecies interaction in Berlin.
Co-Using Spreepark
An urban exploration with: Marcus Maeder, Tim Peschel, Katja Aßmann, Peter Spillmann
June 11, 2021, 4 p.m.
The former amusement park was left to its own devices for a long time after its closure. Flora and fauna settled in the former rides, artificial ponds and residual architecture. Today, the Spreepark is to become a new public space that enables co-use by humans, animals and plants, involving an elaborate negotiation process between actors from environmental protection, urban planning and art.
During the urban exploration, Katja Aßmann gave an insight into the development of the project, for which she is co-responsible as the artistic director of Spreepark Art Space. Biologist Tim Peschel, whose ecological research served as a basis for the Spreepark's open space concept, introduced the creatures that have conquered this habitat. Marcus Maeder presented the first results of his artist residency as part of Cohabitation, in which he documented the current state of the ecosystem in an artistic and scientific way with the help of sound recordings.
