Citizen Art Days 2016: A New Way of Creative Tourism, Art and Sustainable Economy
Sustainable economy and interaction in public space in Berlin: these are the premises of Workshops, Lectures, Discussions and City Explorations by and with artists and for anyone interested
May 30th, 2016
Berlin hosted again: “The Citizen Art Days,” a project, which is implemented to citizens and visitors and can be interacted with the city. Within a framework of creativity and sustainable economy, anyone who is interested, either Berlin or elsewhere, may participate.
Citizen Art Days is a project, created by XXX, where we can design, create the German capital city actively, develop creative projects with well-known artists, contribute our own ideas concerning important matters and issues of today, and share experiences and inspire each other and one another. Citizen Art Days provides a platform for renowned artists and urban actors, together with interested members of the public, to examine Berlin’s public space using artistic strategies.
Growing segregation within the social space provides for the erosion of the "public space" as a location for social communication and democratic process. Following the belief that artistic approaches represent a suitable starting-off point to confront these developments creatively and formulate self-developed standards, standards are developed and concrete projects implemented in a series of workshops. The thematic issues that are discussed include, among others, the economy, sustainability and interaction in the public space.
We found a variety of artists participating in the Citizien Art Days, including Alexander Dill, Boris Woynowski, Christa Wilhelmine Lösel, Christiane ten Hoevel, Daniel Bax, Elisa Garrote Gasch, Folke Köbberling, Jessica Carson, Kefei Cao, Lena Skrabs, María Linares, Oliver Ressler, and Platoniq, among others.
The public space is the place where interaction, social communication and democracy take place. An increasing interest of citizens worldwide to participate in the community processes can be observed. But it is accompanied by a limited repertoire of participation’s forms, a lack of understanding between involved actors, an increasing isolation of living environments and the drifting apart of different living conditions.
The Citizen Art Days are based on the conviction that art projects, which are realized by citizens, artists and urban actors together, are an appropriate approach to counteract those negative developments.
The event took place from 23 to 29 May in the Campus für Kunst und Demokratie, in Berlin.
