URBAN TALK
May 11 2022, 6.00 pm | Floating University, Lilienthalstraße 32 10965 Berlin

Queer and Feminist Housing

Nina Fraeser, RuT Wohnen & Neo Raether

Nina Fraeser / „Freiräume oder Alpträume“ – Safer spaces, braver spaces and the impossibility of purity
The title of a 1988 article, following a series of instances of sexual violence in autonomous movement spaces, opens up a painful question: Are spaces of self-organisation actually facilitating freedom or nightmares. This talk follows this question around. It asks what we see when we look at collectivity and practices of commoning from where it hurts, from frustrated and vulnerable positions.

Dr Yagner Anderson and Jutta Brambach von RuT- Rad und Tat Wohnen gGmbH on RuT Wohnen.
For almost 15 years now, the initiative of lesbian women* „RuT Wohnen“ has been working to realize a dream: to build an inclusive lesbian housing project and a queer cultural center. The story of women* who want to implement a solidary, self-determined, patriarchy- and barrier-free life in the city is a drama in several acts that keeps taking new turns – unintentionally. It reflects the intersections of structural inequalities and relations of oppression that determine urban reality. As the building project nears realisation, its material form emerges as the product of a complex process in this field of forces. We continue to question and develop our concept of safe(r) space, which must remain permeable to bold political action.

Neo Raether on Wagenkollektiv Mollies The Mollies as a fixed collective struc-ture does no longer exist since the eviction from Rummelsburger Bucht last December. However, after years of negotiations with the city, many round-tables and meetings with politicians, the Mollies have successfully fought for a new plot of land.
The property is located directly at the S-Bahn S Springfuhl and has an incre-dible size of 20000sqm. Some of the former Mollies have moved here, others have left due to the hardships of the last years and new people have joined. What remains is a small queer-feminist group that is currently finding itself out of different existing collectives and structures. We are a radically left space for queer empowerment and intersectional solidarity.

*Please come tested if possible*

© Monika Keiler

The Urban Talk is part of the master's studio "Safe(r) City? Safe(r) Housing?"

Download Poster here.