Projektwerkstatt WiSe 2023/24
Samad Fathi, Renée Tischer, Djamila Hafner

Traces of Colonial Spaces 

Design is not apolitical. Throughout history, architecture and urban planning have been tools that manifest the visions of those in power. But what happens when a political regime is overthrown, renounced, reformed? The built environment’s capacity to outlive its designers means that systems of injustice that were strategically inscribed into it also live long and prosper, and are upheld for many generations. When we don’t place a critical lens on theoretical and historical readings of architecture, these systems often get reproduced by new designers as objective norms.

Photo © 3D model source: “BUST OF NEFERTITI, FOIA Results” by CosmoWenman is licensed under CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

This Projektwerkstatt, organized by the student initiative ifa_diaspora, attempts to understand various impacts of the colonial enterprise that construct our everyday surroundings and viewpoints in the city of Berlin – in public, private, and digital space. Together we will create a space of collective learning outside of traditional knowledge production. Participants are encouraged to contribute topics, methodologies, and projects (interviews, mappings, texts, podcasts, videos, installations etc.) that reflect upon and highlight the traces of colonialism in our respective fields.

Download poster here.