Cohabitation
on the art of cohabitation between humans, animals and plants.
a performative walk with Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Professor for Cohabitation, Hochschule für Bildende Künste-Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, and urban design theoretician Christopher Dell, ifit, Berlin
Sunday, 17 September 2023
14.30 – 17.30
Meeting place: Piazza Spinelli at the Church of St. Hildegard
Dürkheimer Street 88
68309 Mannheim
What does living together mean? And what does inclusion or exclusion mean? For a long time, the areas of the former Spinelli Barracks were zones where a “different world” took place. When the soldiers left, the area was initially a wasteland. Then people began to rethink how the areas could be activated for the city, what infrastructure they needed, how they could become a “city” again.
At the same time, the development of the green corridor northeast across the city as part of the development of Mannheim’s conversion areas started a new thinking about the question of nature in the city. Questions that are important for society were addressed here: How can we live well together on earth? How can the challenge of climate change be met? How can we ensure more justice – more justice towards other people, but also towards animals and plants?
What does it mean to know the living? Taking seriously our vulnerability and our dependence on ecosystems makes it possible to understand that inhabiting the earth is always a cohabitation, a living together with others. This requires a profound rethinking of our ideas about the place of humans in nature.
Against this background, the performative walk invites us to observe and question the places of cohabitation that we can discover at the interface between Käfertal-Süd and Spinelli.
Prior registration is requested at kontakt@spinelli-freiraumlab.de
In cooperation with the Kunsthalle Mannheim as part of the “Green Room”, the supporting programme to the exhibition “1.5 degrees”.
