stadtraum.org Art in Public Space, Urban Planning and Development, Urban Field Studies (project, founded in 2002 by Markus Ambach and Andrea Knobloch)

All activities of stadtraum.org focus on the question of specific qualities of the public urban space as a political space, in which society defines itself and represents itself controversially. How can art and/or artistic practice be productively involved? Which specific conditions exist? How can the heterogeneous public spaces of free communication and social interaction be produced and/or supported?

Expectations and requirements on the art in public urban space are various. It should beautify, keep a low profile, make us cheerful, be implemented at the least possible cost, give identity, change urban spaces in a positive way, support the processes of gentrification and so on. Decisions about placement of the works of art in the city are made in committees, which get along in many cases without the participation of artistic authority. Such procedures led to the fact that the City of Duesseldorf has completely ignored some 10 years of advancement of artistic strategies in the context of public art. The most important criteria for art in the urban space still seem to be their pictorial ability and the sympathetic consideration of the mayor.

stadtraum.org opposed a two-fold strategy to that. On the one hand, discourse events were organized in co-operation with local institutions for culture (Artist Association ‘Malkasten’, ‘Kunsthalle Duesseldorf’, ‘Art Association for Rhine and Westphalia’), which wanted to throw light on theoretical discussion and delve into the topic of art in urban space. On the other hand, the concrete change of the urban decision-making processes demand at regional level. Themed ‘which structure creates which event?’ the procedure of the Munich Art Commission with an artist participation of 50 percent, that works successfully for 17 years, was exemplarily applied to Duesseldorf conditions and was positioned as developing initiative proposal in the local politics and administration.

The suggestion of establishing an art commission for Duesseldorf was already exemplary tested in co-operation with the Office for cultural activities and with the Office for real estate management of the City of Duesseldorf this year. Art projects at five Duesseldorf schools in and outside of buildings have been qualified and approved in the context of the pilot project, which was structured and moderated by stadtraum.org and in the meanwhile it’s already in the implementation phase.

Since summer of 2003, stadtraum.org carries on an own function room, which is an open platform for all active participants in the area of urban planning and development, architecture and the art in public space. Regularly lectures and project presentations take place in there, including foreign and international guests, who present innovative artistic practices in public spaces or take a stand to current developments of urban studies, urban development and architecture.

stadtraum.org is also active in urban field studies concerning the town – we organise excursions regarding to specific processes and developments. Our interest in this terms was so far focussed on themes like waste industry facilities or underground planning as well as on urban light stage-manage or on touristic stage-manage of public art. Lectures and research about specific urban phenomena are also a part of the program as project co-operations with urban offices or the European House for City.Building.Culture Association in Gelsenkirchen.

Entitled ‘B1_21st' stadtraum.org has- in collaboration with the Dortmund office orange.edge -developed a project-conception for the artistic and urbanistic debate about the famous Ruhr-highway B1, to study and explore the relationship between individual mobility and the public space in search for the prototype of the decentralized town, that developed along the B1 already.

Selected projects, guided tours, interventions and lectures

Dec 2005 Of the large hole in the landscape. Brown coal open-pit mining as transformer of landscape, villages and ways of life Excursion to the mine area Garzweiler with Jo Meyer and Prof. Horst Ulrich

July 2005 Dirty Old Town, summer-camp at the urban waste, project by stadtraum.org in the context of the series „Art meets city“ of the Europäischen Hauses der Stadtkultur e.V.

Mai 2005 Artisan Limited Productions, project by stadtraum.org in the context of trichtlinnburg, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht

Mai 2005 From practice: case study Worringer Platz, lecture by stadtraum.org in the context of Changing habitats, symposium of art practice and urban development, GAK, Bremen

Mai 2005 Sinai Hotels, exhibition and lecture by and with Stefanie Haubitz/ Sabine Zoche

Feb 2005 ineverystreet, lecture by Horst Griese, GAK Bremen

Jan 2005 …ten minutes from here, Bildreihe (shop window projection) by Anne Pöhlmann (Duesseldorf)

Nov 2004 The Hagen impulse, excursion to Hagen with Michael Fehr (KEOM, Hagen)

Nov 2004 No longer - not yet, film by Daniel Kunle and Holger Lauinger (Berlin)

Nov 2004 Luxury of Emptiness, book presentation with Wolfgang Kil (Berlin)

June 2004 LOTS – Leipzig Open Transition Space, action by urbikon (Leipzig)

Mai 2004 Public presentation of the pilot project Art Committee

April 2004 De Strip, presentation of the project by Jeanne van Heeswijk (Rotterdam)

Feb 2004 Real Crime – Architecture, City and Crime, book presentation with Michael Zinganel (Vienna)