urban land art
local exhibition projects
urban photography projects
urban regeneration projects
social integration projects
arts education projects
artistic research projects
urban literature projects
multi-annual international projects
site specific interventions
awareness campaign development
rigorous investigation approach
real estate development
agile development methods
flux and change
food for thought
DIALOG CITY
ART FOR PUBLIC RESIDENCY
FIRST HYBRID FESTIVAL IN MONDOVÌ, ITALY
News From Home is an ongoing project by the artist duo Anne Fehres and Luke Conroy, capturing overlooked stories from communities. The 10th edition of this project took place during a 4 week artist-residency in Mondovì, Italy.
The outcome of this research and image collection was the creation of a large-scale 6×2 metre photographic composition. This work was presented on a wall in public space during the Hybrid Festival in Mondovì from July 20 — July 22. The final composition consists of almost one thousand individual elements, inspired by the multi-layered identity of Mondovì.
These layers present a diversity of perspectives on Mondovì and include such elements as children’s drawings, historical images, photography of daily life submitted by the community, graffiti scratched into walls around the city and spontaneous staged portraits in the streets. Through this collision of diverse layers, the work celebrates Mondovì as a place where elements of the past, modern reality and future dreams constantly overlap, inviting the audience to consider diverse narratives from both a local and global perspective.
Anne Fehres (The Netherlands) and Luke Conroy (Australia) are a multidisciplinary, research-oriented artist duo currently based in The Netherlands. Their practice engages with sociocultural topics in meaningful yet playful ways, utilising humour and irony as essential tools for critical reflection and expression.
QUIZ RACE
ENGINEERING CONFERENCE
Organised by IG Metall Labour Union and Hans-Böckler-Stiftung
Opening Event of the Conference
14 Sept 22 in Ingolstadt
Mobility is an essential part of human development. The complexity and scale of modern locomotion are immense and a real challenge for our societies. In near future, we must move in a climate-neutral and sustainable manner without excluding people or forcing parts of the world to stand still. In a nutshell: it’s about fair and inclusive mobility for everyone in harmony with nature.
The LABOURGAMES team was commissioned by the Hans-Böckler-Foundation to organize the opening evening with a large group game. We decided on a quiz evening on future mobility issues combined with an RC car competition for 300 people.
DIALOG CITY
Unconference
A holistic approach towards
a digital cultural infrastructure in European cities
Hosted by TU Aschaffenburg – University of Applied Sciences
Under the auspices of the Bavarian Minister of State for Digital,
Ms. Judith Gerlach
In recent years, the term Smart City has become deeply embedded in our language and thought patterns. It means a digitized city that uses technology to collect data, control processes and offer services. This ranges from electronic administration via self-driving public transport to smart solutions for building management. Almost every area that is data-intensive can be recorded, analysed and optimized accordingly.
The European-funded project DIALOG CITY was born out of the conviction that digital transformation is more of a mindset rather than a purely technical innovation.
The overall goal of DIALOG CITY is to create a socially inclusive, environmentally friendly, and economically sustainable urban digital environment. By developing new practices on how to connect digital innovation directly to citizens’ physical participation, DIALOG CITY aims at contributing to increase access to culture through a dialogical approach. Participation is at the core of our project idea encompassing a CITIZEN ARCHIVE PLATFORM for the cultural heritage sector and an innovative design thinking toolkit on FUTURE LITERACY. Three HYBRID FESTIVALS serve as physical and digital cultural platforms to reach diverse audiences in five European countries. An ART FOR PUBLIC residency programme invites artists to develop ideas for urban interventions dealing with local or global topics that are of great significance for the respective urban society based on participatory approach.
DIALOG CITY kicked off with a one-day UNCONFERENCE based on an open space format approach. European project partners invite external experts, artists, stakeholders, decision-makers and the interested public to discuss topics such as participation, digitisation, urban development, art and public, future literacy, personal digital archiving and digital rights.
The artistic coordinator of the DIALOG CITY project is Stefan Horn, CEO of urban dialogues.
LOBUS CEREBRI
LOBE
A two-channel video installation
by Stefan Horn and Mark Straeck
As part of the AlanAlaine project, the two artists from urban dialogues accompanied the process of the project workshops over the course of 2022.
AlanAlaine is a project initiated by the cultural centre Pavilion in Hanover in cooperation with the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
A database comprised of opinions, topics and facts was created which is based on the minutes from the workshops about gender relations. These logs served again as the basis for creating an AI, a ChatBot that grew by using machine learning.
The video and light installation consists of eight discs of fabric that appear to be floating in space, which serve as projection surfaces for a wide variety of mosaic structures.
It adapts to the spatial situation in the foyer of the Hannover Pavilion and takes up the construct of a neural network with a variety of media transitions and material interferences.
FROM THE INVISIBLE
TO THE VISIBLE
London-based artist Diego Ferrari is invited to take part in an Artist-in-Residency programme from 14 – 29 April 2022 by the Wolwedans Foundation.
urban dialogues is a collaborating partner in terms of selecting the artists and curating the programme which is part of Wolwedans Vision 2030 – The AridEden Project.
Wolwedans Foundation’s aim is to soon be entirely plastic-free. Yet plastic remains everywhere in our daily lives. Here it becomes a shroud, a carapace, a cape, its out-of-place-ness accentuating the foreignness of plastic in the natural NamibRand landscape.
CONSTRUCTIONS
OF WE AND I
A laboratory for researching, enduring and performing
the interconnections and interferences of community and individuality
In an experimental theatre approach, young people aged 15 to 27 ask themselves
how people’s self interests can be brought together with those of our society – without conflict.
To do so, they make use of an empty workspace, allocated to them, in Berlin-Moabit for the period of one year and transform it into a lab.
They dig their way through the WE AND I: How do We and I enrich themselves?
When do they get in each other’s way while they go deeper down the road?
Which artistic formats can be found for this?
And finally – how will those CONSTRUCTIONS OF WE AND I find a performative output? As a radio station? A hockey field? Or a call box? Endless options to be explored.
The project is part of the WIR!Filialen of S27- Art and Education, a Berlin-based art lab for young people who want to change the world.
Wir!Filialen is funded by Stiftung Deutsche Jugendmarke e.V., Der Paritätische Berlin and Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Familie
BLAME!GAME
It's always someone else's fault
Everything started with a Game Jam in December 2020. Since then we have been working on the development of a board game that specifically deals with climate change – in cooperation with students from the Evangelische Schule Zentrum in Berlin.
Blame!Game has now been presented as part of the House of World Cultures’ ‘Schools of Tomorrow’ program.
It is designed for 2-7 players who slip into different roles by drawing a card and being given an ice cube. Now everyone tries to bring their own ice cube to the goal on the playing field. At the same time, he or she does everything possible to destroy each other’s ice cubes with various verbal and mechanical attacks.
Slowly but surely the pieces are melting away …
BONES RISING
A Theatre Production
in Namibia
BONES RISING is a project which comprises the development of a theatre production with a participatory approach as well as a multimedia performance. The primary target group are children and adolescents aged 8 to 16 years.
BONES RISING take use of the famous Namibian folk tale »Human Bones«, in order to create an innovative and contemporary form of storytelling by using physical theatre, sound design and new media such as stills, motion visuals and participatory theatre elements.
The project is going to be implemented in Namibia (2021) and Cameroon (2022).
urban dialogues is responsible for the set-design while also contributing to the initial research regarding the colonial remains and repercussions in Africa.
The project is supported by the International Coproduction Fund of the Goethe-Institut.
GAME JAM
'Schools of Tomorrow'
Schools are laboratories for tomorrow’s society!
But how can they become places where a new future emerges?
What social agents are necessary for this?
Schools of Tomorrow is a project initiated and co-ordinated by the House of World Cultures Berlin in order to artistically research the future of schools.
In December 2020 a Game Jam was organised by urban dialogues in co-operation with House of World Cultures Berlin and the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum.
Due to the pandemic, the final presentation was postponed a few times.
Now it is planned to happen in November 2021.
Winner of the Covid-19
Creativity Challenge Prize in Namibia
Illustration Video contributing to the fight
against the pandemic in Namibia
This video has been released on African Day, 25 May 2020.
It is reflecting the efficiency of the current struggle regarding Covid-19 in Namibia.
It is the fruitful result of the collaboration between the Namibian artist and graphic facilitator Hage Mukwendje and the storytelling by urban dialogues’ artistic director Stefan Horn.
Public Space and Public Art
A playful debate moderated by Stefan Horn (urban dialogues) in co-operation with Namibian Art Association
Graphic recordings by Hage Mukwendje
Respondents:
Ndapewa Fenny Nakanyete, Ellison Tjirera and Natache Sylvia Iilonga