in collaboration with Polly Bruchlos
The master's thesis Haunted Landscapes traces the correlation of architectural practice and education with the (in)visibility and displacement of marginalised habitats and questions which systems are thereby supported, maintained and reproduced. From oil- drilling in the Ecuadorian rainforest, the extermination of insect populations on an unprecedented scale, to the inaccessibility to housing due to the abolition of the anti- discrimination law in the Berlin housing market:
What responsibilities do we - as architects and spatial practitioners - assume towards these precarious conditions to which we have become used to? What does it mean for the practice of architecture to question its fundamental narrative of growth, extractivism and progress? Can an active engagement with decolonial theories and practices help us understand these realities as a series of discontinuities and trace their interconnectedness?
Watch the film or scroll down to the research.
The master's thesis Haunted Landscapes traces the correlation of architectural practice and education with the (in)visibility and displacement of marginalised habitats and questions which systems are thereby supported, maintained and reproduced. From oil- drilling in the Ecuadorian rainforest, the extermination of insect populations on an unprecedented scale, to the inaccessibility to housing due to the abolition of the anti- discrimination law in the Berlin housing market:
What responsibilities do we - as architects and spatial practitioners - assume towards these precarious conditions to which we have become used to? What does it mean for the practice of architecture to question its fundamental narrative of growth, extractivism and progress? Can an active engagement with decolonial theories and practices help us understand these realities as a series of discontinuities and trace their interconnectedness?
Watch the film or scroll down to the research.
Based on an animated film of an almost real scenario of Berlin in 30 years, "Haunted Landscapes" plays with the
tensions between utopia and dystopia, fiction and
reality, frustration and hope, and searches for possible
futures within spaces built on violence. The work thus
spins a space between scenography, narrative and
theory to question the responsibility of all of us as
space-producing beings towards our pasts and
futures.
What do everyday practices that question human-centred planning processes have to do with the current housing struggles
What do everyday practices that question human-centred planning processes have to do with the current housing struggles
against the processes of displacement at Hermannplatz? To what extent do neighbourhood walks in Berlin and a sewing class at Mehringplatz play a crucial role in these struggles?
The film fictionally weaves together five stories of contamination, entanglement and recomposting. Stories that tell of assemblages between human and non-human beings, technologies and the fissures of the city. They are everyday narratives without individual protagonists, without suspense and heroic endings, and instead stories about care, responsibility and self-empowerment. In this way, Haunted Landscapes questions progress-oriented approaches to the future and proposes a future that is possible because it is already here.
film-essay, research haunted landscapes
In colaboration with initatives and collectives working in Berlin, the short-film reinterpretates five practices taking place in Berlin despite the destructive realities of the city which suggest possible futures of coexistence. As part of the master‘s thesis, we looked more closely at five of these practices, traced them as intersectional struggles and worked out their scenographic and cinematic materialization. Thanks to:
Initiative Hermannplatz, Nadja Koussa, Club Real (Organismen Demokratie), Jasmin Parsley, Kiez Versammlung 44
