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This paper offers the framework of an agonistic politics of invitation to nuance the political implications of contextually- and temporally-specific cultural policy invites that bring to light a range of conflicts. Invitations are conceptualized with respect to their rationale, form, role expectations, and responses in three empirical vignettes: (1) the collectivized articulation of Berlin’s trans-disciplinary Koalition der Freien Szene as future invitee in local cultural governance; (2) the counter-invitation formulated by New York City’s People’s Cultural Plan to tackle ongoing racial inequities in the municipal Cultural Plan; and (3) uninvited graffiti responses to Vancouver’s Chinatown public art call to reconcile century-long discrimination against Chinese Canadians. The paper argues that invitations crucially shape and condition future spaces of possibilities for collaborative urban cultural governance.

In this paper, we investigate five activist-artistic approaches to argue for a sensory politics of the Anthropocene. Our aim is to highlight the affective and speculative potentials of art by examining how artists engage with the senses to make air pollution and its political implications visible, tangible, or otherwise experiential. The paper touches on widerreaching discourses on the politics of sensing, sensible politics, and sensory studies. Rather than situating air pollution within a policy framework, such as that of the international sustainable development goals, we locate our arguments within recent scholarship on postpolitics and the Anthropocene. Despite its epistemological slipperiness, we consider the Anthropocene to be a potent heuristic as well as a rich resource of ideas, data, and collaborative and antagonistic potential for artists working on issues of air pollution. The five case studies are each grounded in an explicit engagement with at least one of the five basic senses and include works by Amy Balkin, Hanna Husberg, Zane Cerpina and Stahl Stenslie, Lingling Zhang, Kitchen Budapest and Baltan Laboratories (NL). Clustered into three lines of argumentation, we demonstrate the ways in which these works contribute to the politicization of air: first, by framing air as a contested common good that problematizes the commodification of clean air; second, by integrating artistic research and environmental communication strategies; and third, by providing sensory experiences of the complicated constellations of agency and perception in the interscalar phenomenon of air pollution. Although our analysis is not exhaustive, three particularities could be identified in the works: an openness to other forms of knowledge and communication; a potent critique of the Anthropocene; and a radical questioning of ‘the political’. In conclusion, we argue that art can mobilize a sense of urgency and empowerment towards a multi-sensory politics of the Anthropocene.

The paper intervenes in critical policy studies to challenge the ‘success bias’ lingering in public policy accounts of collaborative governance. I suggest conflict, rather than consensus, is a productive resource to navigate collaborations between state and civic stakeholders. By developing a conflict-oriented framework that foregrounds political decisions as always-already failing – regardless of whether promoted as success or failure – I argue that the recognition of nuanced conflicts contributes to new understandings on what counts as success or failure to whom. To substantiate the conflict-oriented framework of policy failure, I present empirical insights into Berlin’s urban cultural politics, shedding light on a new funding instrument for artists. Unpacking artists’ and administrators’ understandings about what constitutes a failure, and how to proceed from there, I propose ‘policyfailing’ as ongoing failure. Conceptualising failure along the lines of operational conflicts (i.e. concrete, procedural disagreements) and meta conflicts (i.e. overarching, ideological differences), two scenarios of policy failure emerge: absolute policy failure, pointing to unsolvable conflicts between state and civic stakeholders; and agonistic policy failure, referring to wider-ranging disagreements about the purpose of policy issues, which are however transferred into temporary policy solutions. Following one such agonistic policy failure in Berlin over time, I show how new opportunities for both absolute and agonistic policy failure unfold. Ultimately, I outline the practical, political and analytical potential of an agonistic framework to understand policies as inherently contested and, to some degree, always failing.

The relation between politics, ontology, and space remains one of the most contested concerns in human geography, often leading to a dismissal of ontology in favor of the politicization of space. In contrast, this article mobilizes post-foundationalism to propose a political ontology of space. After reviewing geographers’ engagements with politics, post-politics and the political, the article demonstrates how a post-foundational geography radically uproots geographic understandings of political and socio-spatial realities. Grounded upon parameters of negativity, contingency, and antagonism, the article equips geographers to grapple with the crumbling foundations of an uncertain present, and unknown futures.

The article unpacks the multiple political implications of commissioned murals in contested urban space. It examines public artwork in Hogan’s Alley, a historically Black neighborhood in Vancouver, BC, situated on the unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Coast Salish Nations. Drawing from ethnographic field research and semi-structured interviews with local artists, policymakers and community activists, I read the mural Remember Hogan’s Alleny (2019), covering the sidewall of a subsidized housing project, as a contested public space. In this conflictual space, multiple pasts appear, disappear and reappear, oscillating between the celebration of Black culture, food and entertainment and the systematic displacement of Black residents and businesses. By contrasting diverging rationales, expectations and dreams regarding murals’ contributions to memory-making and cultural reconciliation, I trace where and how conflicts about public art inscribe themselves into the urban cultural fabric. The article intervenes into the predominantly ‘positive’ discussion of sanctioned public art to develop a more conflict-attuned understanding of artworks placed in the public realm. It deploys a framework of hauntology to discuss the appearance of ghosts invited into the public realm via official art commissions. These ghosts, becoming visible on urban walls via acts of placemaking, conjure memories of spatial displacement and racial discrimination, as well as stories of community care and healing. In sum, the article argues that the analytic of ghosts assists to foster an understanding of public art as always-already conflictual, thus inviting to stay with conflicts of belonging and memory, rather than to suppress them or shy away. By reflecting on what public art does politically – unpacking diverse narratives of the past that continue to mark present racial inequalities – the article contributes to sketching a conflict-oriented understanding of public space that is needed in cities wounded by racism and displacement.

The paper explores the politics of (dis)assembling borders within Europe. It examines the performance of the Berlin-based artist collective Zentrum für Politische Schönheit (Center for Political Beauty, ZPS) in 2014, in which artist activists temporarily removed white border crosses commemorating death at the former Berlin Wall. With this unauthorized displacement, ZPS sought to problematize ongoing violence and death at European borders. Via a three-part analysis of the performance Erster Europäischer Mauerfall (First European Fall of the Wall), the paper outlines a political framework for understanding art around and against borders – contributing to accounts on border art and the politics of borders. Staged as critique against the official commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, perceived by ZPS as festivalized and thus apolitical event, the multiple performance acts highlight material and emotional movements. They oscillate between past and present border death, commemorated and forgotten border objects, bodies, places. In particular, ZPS aimed to denounce (implicit) hierarchies regarding how and whose death at European borders is remembered via acts of (dis)assembling. By unsolicitedly (re)moving Berlin’s border crosses (Act I), mobilizing over 100 activists to dismantle border fences and temporarily installing replica crosses at Southern EU borders and placing them in the hands of contemporary refugees (Act III), ZPS mobilized public concern about contemporary border politics and commemoration. The paper contributes to border studies that view borders as inherently complex and contingent symbolic, socio-spatial arrangements, which affect and are affected by objects, bodies, and policies that oscillate between contested absence and presence. Accompanied by controversial media coverage, the performance gathered (im)mobile bodies, moving objects, and multiple emotional responses about the what, where and who of Europe. Ultimately, politics of (dis)assembling unfold absence and presence to articulate mo(ve)ments of ‘the political’ as contestation against complacency and border violence.

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Der Beitrag untersucht die wachsende gesellschaftspolitische bzw. aktivistische Rolle von Museen und deren multiple raumbezogenen Herausforderungen. Dr. Landau nimmt das Wechselverhältnis von Museumsräumen und Konflikten in den Blick und diskutiert, wie Museumsräume einerseits von vielschichtigen Konflikten durchzogen sind, und andererseits als Arenen zur Aushandlung von Konflikten an Bedeutung gewinnen.

This paper argues that it is important for urban scholars and practitioners to comparatively appraise the differential forms of local embeddedness of cultural quarters. Such appraisals can help to ...

This paper argues that intermediation is both a valuable form of occupational self-organization for professional artists and a political act of embedding with socio-spatial ramifications at different local, urban, and global scales. A case study of events organized in Berlin by the interdisciplinary cultural centre Zentrum fur Kunst und Urbanistik demonstrates how artists strategically practice intermediation as modes of autopoietic and dissipative self-organization and as an interscalar survival strategy. These artist intermediaries add improvisational flexibility to the state’s understanding of Verstetigung (sustainable anchoring that fosters a reliable relationship between urban policymakers and cultural producers) and challenge neoliberal urban development logics that instrumentalize creativity.

Place-making is a policy exercise rooted in a politics of both space and time. By examining the temporal sequencing of discursive relations and governance networks in the cultural redevelopment of Güterbahnhof Moabit in Berlin, this article demonstrates the fallacy of place-making via artist proxy. It documents the hidden expectations of artist stakeholders and the overextension of their capacities in their municipally delegated and self-assumed roles as “strategic” and “collaborative” partners with local government in place-making processes. It argues that contrary to collaborative and participatory governance ideals, artists are often singularly responsibilized by civic leaders to realize place-narratives for a community rather than with them, which creates a fundamental barrier to community engagement.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of two artist-led collective actors, Koalition der Freien Szene (KFS) and Haben and Brauchen (H&B), and their differing strategies of political critique towards Berlin’s cultural policy-making complex. The paper seeks to contribute to the lack of empirical case studies on Berlin’s cultural governance and cultural policy stakeholders by creating a self-designed framework for analysis of artist-led organizations’ formulation of political claims and how their articulations find entrance into policy-making. Design/methodology/approach The paper’s theoretical framework is situated at the intersection between new social movement studies, post-positivist policy analysis and discursive institutionalism. Methodologically, the paper is based on qualitative interviews with members of KFS, H&B and relevant cultural stakeholders from Berlin’s contemporary arts scene. Findings The paper identifies five differentiating axes of political critique through a self-designed framework. These include: political or constitution-like program, personnel infrastructures determining decision-making, approach to cultural administration, strategic agenda and activity in a collective action framing scheme. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the (trans)formative potentialities for Berlin’s future cultural policy due to complementarity of discursivity and operative action, of pragmatism and utopian thinking. Practical implications The practical implications of the paper provide guidance for cultural policymakers to better systematize modes of participatory policy-making. Originality/value This paper gives an overview of current developments and shifts in Berlin’s cultural field through the emergence of new collective actors by providing unique stakeholder-centered perspective(s). Furthermore, through an empirically grounded, self-designed analytical framework, a systematic analysis of articulatory and communicative strategies and the practices of new cultural policy stakeholders is provided.

This chapter explores how political actors constitute themselves and how they intervene in existing urban governance arrangements to enact alternative visions of social and cultural urban development. It draws on empirical studies from Berlin where artists and independent cultural producers have been carving out a space for themselves in governance arrangements to shape alternative ideas of Berlin’s future. Identifying the actor constellations and the resources they mobilize through a lens of conflict and consensus reveals the mechanisms through which stakeholders contested and (re)appropriated the politicized rhetoric of the ‘Creative City.’ The chapter demonstrates how collectivization efforts of cultural workers have differently (re)shaped the political opportunity structures in place to influence and intervene in Berlin’s urban cultural and creative politics.

Die zentrale These des Artikels lautet, dass (kunstlerische) Interventionen als Medium einer wissens- und kreativitatsbasierten Innovationsgesellschaft gedeutet werden konnen, welche sich uber die permanente Suche nach Neuheit reguliert. Verstanden als kreativ-experimentelle Praxisform sollen in und durch Interventionen grenz- oder felderubergreifende Gesellschaftsgestaltung und -verhandlung entstehen, die neue Formen und Interpretationen des Sozialen ermoglichen. In einer von asthetischer Regulation und einem Kreativitatsimperativ geleiteten Gesellschaft werden gestalterische Disziplinen mit ihren asthetisch geleiteten Praktiken zunehmend als Gesellschaftsgestalter_innen beansprucht bzw. aufgewertet, um in spezifische Gesellschaftsstrukturen zu intervenieren und neue Moglichkeiten der Arbeits- oder Lebensorganisation zur Diskussion zu stellen. Interventionen werden dabei nicht nur als Instanzen der Verhandlung von Wirklichkeit zur Etablierung und Verschiebung von Handlungs-, Organisations- und Gesellschaftsformen konzeptualisiert, sondern sie konnen – so die These der Autor_innen – auch die ontologischen Grundlagen des Sozialen ent-grenzen und dadurch das radikal Neue moglich machen. In Anlehnung an die von Andreas Reckwitz entwickelten Regime des Neuen (I-III) erortern die Autor_innen ein weiteres Regime des Neuen (IV), welches mit einem postfundamentalistischen Ansatz versucht, die konstitutive Ambivalenz des Interventionsbegriffs erkenntnistheoretisch als Artikulationspraxis des radikal Neuen neu zu erschliesen.

In recent years Dutch real estate developers have been subject to some societal market trends that force them to change roles (Heurkens, 2013). The decreased demand for office space, limited debt funding, challenging user demands, stalling public investments, and increased competition from new companies, necessitate developer to deploy more new development, investment and partnership strategies. In this regard, investing in innovations, applying new business models, and adopting sustainability principles seem necessary for Dutch developers to remain a key player within urban real estate development. However, a Dutch study (Panteia, 2013) revealed that the real estate development industry is a conservative sector that ranks among the least innovative nation-wide. Recent studies focusing on the changing role of Dutch developers in relation to innovation, business models and sustainability show similar results. Haak & Heurkens (2015) indicate that Dutch developers are innovating in their operations, products and services, and business models, but these are not supported by changing corporate management strategies. Similarly, Bogers (2015) argues that business model changes likes new forms of collaboration, focus on cash flows, and market-driven development are occurring, but that it remains to be seen whether these changes are structural in times of an apparent real estate market boom. Additionally, Buskens (2015) concludes that sustainability is not treated as a key part of development strategies, which limits the Dutch developer’s ability to change roles and practices. Therefore, this paper advocates that insight is needed into the institutional conditions that assist Dutch real estate developers to adopt new development, investment and partnership roles and strategies.Bogers, B. (2015). Post Global Financial Crisis property development: An assessment of the impact of the post GFC environment on Dutch property developer’s business models. Delft: TU Delft.Buskens, B. (2015). De duurzame ontwikkelaar: Hoe en waarom projectontwikkelaars zich kunnen committeren aan duurzame gebiedsontwikkeling. Delft: TU Delft.Haak, M. & Heurkens, E.W.T.M. (2015). Innovatie bij vastgoedontwikkelaars: typologieen en strategieen. Real Estate Research Quarterly, 14 (2), 48-54.Heurkens, E.W.T.M. (2013). Een nieuwe rolverdeling: privaat ‘in the lead’, publiek faciliteert. VHV Bulletin, 40 (3), 14-15. Panteia (2013). De innovativiteit van het MKB in 2013. Zoetermeer: Panteia.

Berlin is a growing city. Almost 48,000 people permanently moved to Berlin in 2013, and the number of national and international tourists is constantly rising: 30 million tourist overnight stays are expected in over 700 tourist accommodations in 2016. This massive influx of people challenges the existing built capacities, leading to a tense housing market with increasing rents, selling prices and standard land value, especially in attractive inner-city neighborhoods. The politicization of real estate development and rent prices has produced several regulatory housing policy measures such as the increase of the land purchase tax (2014), Subpoena on the Prohibition of the Misuse of Living Space (2014), and Rent Control (2015). The development of Berlin’s real estate market into one of the most attractive capital investment markets took place at unprecedented speed: inter alia, the transformation of rental property into condominiums or the transformation of residential into commercial usages, vacancy rates have decreased to around 2 percent today. These developments have resulted in a strongly articulated demand for new (residential) constructions requesting about 20,000 additional dwelling units in Berlin.In a four-field-matrix developed elsewhere (Landau/Wellner, 2014), the variable of ‘tourist accommodations’ (TA) is being examined as influential factor on the changing residential quality in inner-city residential neighborhoods in Berlin, where tourism has an increasing impact on both economic development as well as on social cohesion. Tourism has evoked resentment and protest amongst some residents of areas that are heavily frequented by tourists. The variable TA is divided into an official or formalized accommodation segment, i.e. hotels and hostels, as well as an informal sector, i.e. privately-rented sublets or vacation rentals whose number is estimated at 12,000 in all over Berlin. The dimensions of residential quality will be differentiated into built features (location, quality of building etc.), economic (rent level, tenant mix etc.), social (neighborhood atmosphere, security, fluctuation etc.), ecological and health-related (noise, pollution etc.) aspects, thus contributing to the conceptualization of ‘residential quality’.

Der zweisprachige Band The Art of Urban Intervention / Die Kunst des urbanen Handelns zeigt anhand einer Bandbreite künstlerischer Projekte in verschiedenen Städten Europas, wie Künstler_innen als Gestalter_innen von Stadt eine aktive und kritische sowie teilweise auch widerständige Rolle in urbanen Transformationsprozessen einnehmen. Sie ermöglichen Begegnungen und Beziehungen zwischen den verschiedenen lokalen Akteur_innen – von Nachbar_innen, Migrant_innen und Händler_innen bis hin zu Immobilienentwickler_innen oder Investor_innen – und werden so Teil von Gemeinschafts- und Sinnstiftung in den vor Ort herrschenden Lebenswelten. Teilweise mit den pragmatischen Realitäten seitens der Stadtplanung und entwicklung konfrontiert, eignen sich die beteiligten Künstler_innen nicht nur Räume, sondern auch Formen des Einflusses auf die Ausgestaltung der Stadt von morgen an. Neben der rezensierenden Analyse gehen wir zudem kritisch auf den Umgang mit den Begriffen ‚Handeln‘ und ‚Intervention‘ ein.

Berlin is a growing city. Almost 48,000 people permanently moved to Berlin in 2013, and the number of national and international tourists is constantly rising: 30 million tourist overnight stays are expected in over 700 tourist accommodations in 2016. This massive influx of people challenges the existing built capacities, leading to a tense housing market with increasing rents, selling prices and standard land value, especially in attractive inner-city neighborhoods. The politicization of real estate development and rent prices has produced several regulatory housing policy measures such as the increase of the land purchase tax (2014), Subpoena on the Prohibition of the Misuse of Living Space (2014), and Rent Control (2015). The development of Berlin’s real estate market into one of the most attractive capital investment markets took place at unprecedented speed: inter alia, the transformation of rental property into condominiums or the transformation of residential into commercial usages, vacancy rates have decreased to around 2 percent today. These developments have resulted in a strongly articulated demand for new (residential) constructions requesting about 20,000 additional dwelling units in Berlin.In a four-field-matrix developed elsewhere (Landau/Wellner, 2014), the variable of ‘tourist accommodations’ (TA) is being examined as influential factor on the changing residential quality in inner-city residential neighborhoods in Berlin, where tourism has an increasing impact on both economic development as well as on social cohesion. Tourism has evoked resentment and protest amongst some residents of areas that are heavily frequented by tourists. The variable TA is divided into an official or formalized accommodation segment, i.e. hotels and hostels, as well as an informal sector, i.e. privately-rented sublets or vacation rentals whose number is estimated at 12,000 in all over Berlin. The dimensions of residential quality will be differentiated into built features (location, quality of building etc.), economic (rent level, tenant mix etc.), social (neighborhood atmosphere, security, fluctuation etc.), ecological and health-related (noise, pollution etc.) aspects, thus contributing to the conceptualization of ‘residential quality’.

Real estate markets are influenced by diverse factors from both the supply and demand side. One influential dimension of real estate developments is tourism. On the one hand, the rising attractiveness of a city or region leads to changing configurations in the services and retail industry in order to consider tourists’ consumption and leisure practices. On the other hand, the real estate market is affected by an influx of tourists, aiming at accommodating the various needs of tourists. Berlin, which has remarkably risen as tourist destination in the past years, now ranking third after Paris and London in Europe, is affected by tourism in various ways: the hotel and catering industry is expanding, especially in the low budget travelling sector (hostels etc.), sometimes rivalling previous usages of the city space. With an estimated number of over 12,000 vacation rentals, many Berlin tourists stay in apartments, which were formerly regular apartments on the rental market. This practice of ‘authentic living’ creates more scarcity of affordable rent space in the city. The present paper discusses the concept of ‘touristification’, partially seen as side effect of gentrification, and its influences on the development of rent prices, modernization efforts and tenant structures. We are investigating the short- and long-term implications for both property owners, looking at higher short-term gains by renting to tourists, and tenants’ perspectives, facing higher pressure on their rents.To this point, the concept of ‘touristification’ has not received much scholarly analysis. Being present in popular discourse in Berlin’s city-specific political debates, the term is commonly used, however weakly defined. With the present research, we seek to conceptualize what phenomena the term ‘touristification’ seeks to describe and in what ways ‘touristification’ has an impact on real estate prices, on the housing market for property owners, as well as national and international tenants. In the present paper, we will delineate research questions and preliminary hypotheses on this very current topic. Applying a mixed-methods approach of real estate know-how and social sciences methodologies, we will present our interdisciplinary research design. We will give insight into the study design, which brings together perspectives on the (perceived and physical) influences of tourism on Berlin neighbourhoods from property owners, tenants and tourists.