Jorinde Schulz
she/herA toolbox of creative strategies for participation in urban development processes
Jorinde Schulz is the author of “Die Clubmaschine (Berghain)”, a speculative literary essay exploring the myths and machinery of a legendary Berlin club, and the co-editor of the anthology “Generalverdacht” (General Suspicion), a multidisciplinary critical anthology about racist criminalisation targeting migrant communities and neighborhoods in Germany. As part of the team of the non-profit organisation Gemeingut, she organises processes of resistance against privatisation, especially in the fields of urban politics, public transport, and health care. As an activist, she is part of initiatives against racist police violence and urban securitisation. She is a crew member of the artist collective Spaceship Beben.
Project
When cities grow, this does not only mean the construction of new buildings and infrastructure. Change is often accompanied by the destruction of what already exists – urban spaces that are an integral part of the lives and memories of the city’s inhabitants. Their stories and ideas must be part of the process of a changing city. This pilot project aims to develop creative strategies to engage those affected by urban development plans through a threefold approach: collaborative archiving, speculative vision building and critical participation. It intervenes in the highly controversial plans of the Berlin city administration to demolish the SEZ, an iconic former sports and leisure centre from the 1980s. The project attempts to combine knowledge about gentrification and privatisation with artistic practice and production. The aim is to unleash the creative and regenerative potential of collective imaginations and memories in order to reactivate a much-loved public infrastructure.
