Diverting Public Space
We are entangled with the spaces around us. We are the public, we have our spaces.
The public space enables us and limits us - it makes us what we are.
But, in times of ecological turmoil, are our spaces changing fast enough with us? Do they adapt (us) well to the new chaotic climates of the Earth? Or do they make us stuck in the values and practises of an old, fossil fueled and consumerist way of life?
Space is inert. We tend to become inert with it.
How can we engage it to change - with - us - and the world ?
Diverting Public Space is a performance project that seeks to engage, rework and divert our common usage of public space and renegotiate our habits in times of ecologcial disaster developed by David Kummer, Guus Diepenmaat and Kilian Jörg. It is partly based on Kilian Jörg’s theoretical work “Backlash – Essays zur Resilienz der Moderne” and has been done so far in Berlin, Brussels and Vienna.
Through a spectrum of shared bodily practices in public space, we seek to enable new modes of action and perception, which should lead to a self-empowerment of the participants and an invitation to dialogue and engagement with pedestrians. Together, old patterns of movement in public space will be questioned and a new playful and at the same time critical physicality will be explored. The developed and guided scores shall give the possibility to inscribe oneself deeply into the public space in a different way and to practice and experience a choreographic perception. The space, being transformed into a versatile adventure playground (for big and small), is meant to open Utopian windows of possibility for a different "fusion" with our human-made, urban environment and the questioning of its norms.
