Seminar SoSe 2024
Dr. Moritz Ahlert,  Prof. Dr. Anke Hagemann

Kiosk of Solidarity II

Solidarity is not an abstract principle. It is lived in everyday practices, enabled in concrete spaces, and achieved through political struggle. Solidarity is a manner of living together that cannot be decreed from above. To the contrary: the challenges of our time require answers from below. 
This seminar accompanies the ongoing urban practice format ›Kiosk of Solidarity‹. Selected Berlin initiatives, each of which understands itself as a practice of solidarity, will  occupy the Kiosk for a couple of days in summer 2024 at various locations in Berlin with the formats of their choice (political manifestations, workshops, talks, screenings, bar, cooking events, etc.).
The Kiosk, as a low-threshold everyday tool, aims to create new (solidary) places of encounter, networking, knowledge production, knowledge transfer, protest, mutual support, and participation in public spaces. It brings local initiatives and neighborhoods together at various locations, becomes a platform, collects local knowledge, and initiates transformative processes of solidarity-based urban development – or strengthens them.

Photo: © Monika Keiler Kiosk of Solidarity X RAR / Guerilla Architects 08/2023  

The Kiosk, designed by ConstructLab, was curated in 2023 by the research project Transforming Solidarities and programmed together with the participating initiatives. The process of the first phase was documented in the exhibition ›Spaces of Solidarity‹ at DAZ; in 2023 the Kiosk won two Design Awards. After the first prototype phase in 2023, the vision is to establish the Kiosk as a long-term common good and solidarity-oriented infrastructure for civil society initiatives in Berlin.

Seminar participants co-produce formats of the Kiosk of Solidarity together with selected initiatives. Three groups of students will each organize one of three stops of the Kiosk. Self-organized, they will collaborate with a selected initiative, analyze the specific context, choose a location, organize permits, co-produce content, and develop their own formats.
Readings will introduce current debates on solidarity in urban studies and social sciences.

 More info: Kiosk of Solidarity

Download Poster here.