München Artists Against Gentrification

- open for all to see, wherever you may be
markuspetz
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Liittynyt: 20 Helmi 2008, 21:52
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München Artists Against Gentrification

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Moro Kaikkille

This year I was an invited artist to the Fresh Future Theory Festival in München led by Lisa Erb of the Volution Institute:

http://lisaerb.com/index.php?id=181

Lisa has exhibited her work in Hirvitalo - and that is how she got to know me and partly why I was invited. When I went there the "Erbanites" I met were a great bunch of people that would have much in synergy with us in Pispala. Feminist, immigrant, straight edge, definitely not straight edge, gay culture and herbologies were just some of the movements we touched upon and met practitioners from.

But something they faced, perhaps to a more extreme level than we face in Pispala was Gentrification. There the process seems to be much more advanced and the artistic way of thinking very much in a minority of people. The city is suffering a big change. The so called "greatest artist area of ​​Europe" has shrunk to 2 houses.

You can see and support the Kollektiv der Domagkstraße Haus Nr. 49 here:

http://www.haus-49.de/

More can be read about the struggle and reasons why gentrification is bad on this blog:

http://schlamassel.blogsport.de/index.p ... rification

In brief; it is being driven by NAZI tendencies that limit self-expression, prevent new artists getting on and developing careers, restricting people to worse quality housing at higher rents and forcing communities to exclude low income people.

There is also an aspect of self-expression and denial of cultural rights. These rights are hard to simplify, but they are tied intimately to the land and space. So for example café culture or the use of public parks allow you to express your views visually, in action and by just being. If all the parks were controlled by the police maintaining public order and the cafés were all sports bars with loud TVs you would loose some rights. And these aspects of rights and how gentrification is menacing them is explored here:

http://rechtaufstadtmuc.wordpress.com/2 ... ir-weiter/

The blog (so far they say there are those against gentrification, but they are not organized into a formal movement) also challenges itself by including criticism leveled by the progentrification folks. There is in one district called GIESING a cinema, and after a restaurant was repeatedly daubed with "Willkommen in Giesing, ihr Arschlöcher" - Welcome to Giesing you asshole the owner of that nearby kino put-up like a movie ad "HALLO GIESING MEIN NAME IST GENTRiFICATION" - a perfect piece of irony, although some think he was progentrification others think its just a comment on the situation. This was made into a postcard which I have and can be seen here:

http://schlamassel.blogsport.de/images/charlie.jpg

There is a term in German for what the area is changing to and it is Kulturraum:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulturraum

and in this case the Kulturraum is becoming one of monoculture and lack of diversity rather than multiculturalism. I like very much the term they have used to describe the people allowing / making this happen passively or actively - the Lumpenbourgeoisie!

So if you manage to make it to München soon try and hook up with some of these guys and watch that these bad things aren't allowed to develop here. It would also be good if some of those engaged in Pispala with similar struggles can post here so that we can support each other in solidarity.

Ciaokka!

markus petz
Ask me and maybe I say
tell me and I might listen
feel for me when I can't feel for myself...