Wir bleiben alle - ZK/U Berlin

The slogan "Wir bleiben Alle" is seen on fewer and fewer weary facades in Berlin. The commanding words no longer manages to live up to what they promise and the message fades behind freshly painted houses covered by evergrowing scaffolding that comes with an increased gentrification. 

Burning cars as a form of urban protest has become a growing phenomenon in many European cities. In 2016, 372 cars were set on fire in Berlin. Burning and destroying cars expresses something more than just a simple urge to vandalize private property. Cars offer and symbolize a form of (social) mobility and an opportunity for change. This is something some people often lack or oppose, both in terms of fear and resistance of the multicultural or an overwhelming gentrification. Read and interpreted in this context, a car has many meanings and ideas associated with it. However, it is perhaps not just as a symbol that the car is important, but rather as a communication unit between several different realities. Using a car in this way, as a starting point for opening up new understanding of reality that insists on being explored, not only challenges the different interpretations of these events, but also the very understanding of a city itself. The project “Wir bleiben alle” is exploring and recording the city's social acoustics by analyzing strategies, aesthetics, content and actions as potentially choreographed actors. 

April 1 - May 31 2019 

ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik
Siemensstrasse 27 

10551 Berlin

Germany