DEMO:POLIS –
Public Space: Fights and Fictions

Public space is not an issue of luxury. As a platform of political and social debate and dispute, public space is a mainstay of the democratic way of life around the world and inseparably bound to the parameters of each particular culture. Civil society participation in public space is under threat from strategies of global capital just as much as from authoritarian power structures and security issues. During this 36-hour programme comprising lectures, panel discussions, interviews, screenings, performances and artistic interventions, the Akademie der Künste is transformed into a public stage and a meeting point for international figures currently defining and influencing discourse.

19 May, 7pm: Prologue
Opening with Joachim Bernauer, Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, Omar Nagati, Johannes Odenthal, Wilfried Wang, Eyal Weizman, Sophie Wolfrum

20 May, 12am – 21 May, 12pm: 36-hour Factory of Thought
Keynote speakers include Arno Brandlhuber (Berlin), Eva Franch i Gilabert (New York), Eyal Weizman (London), Gabi Ngcobo (Johannesburg), Léopold Lambert (Paris), and Peter Cachola Schmal (Frankfurt).
Discussions with, among others, Omar Nagati (Cairo), Raquel Rolnik (São Paulo), Pedro Gadanho (Lisbon), Doreen Heng Liu (Guangzhou), and Anna Minton (London). Performances by Cooking Sections (London), Tentative Collective (Karachi), and Bryony Roberts (Oslo/Rome)

A cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. An event held as part of DEMO:POLIS - The Right to Public Space.