Disrupting Babylon

Humans are a migratory species. They move from rural areas to megacities, they move into the cloud because of their speculative dreams. Is it possible to disrupt, subvert and demystify the politics of urban space while loosening the formal structure of a classroom? The artists Heiko-Thandeka Ncube and Anna Ehrenstein asked a group of displaced students at Heinz-Brandt-Schule what future issues they wanted to work on: Their collective decision was to build a future city. While planning and building their model city of video, cardboard, graffiti and clay, the young people analyze their favorite cities. They learn what human work is behind the mirrored facades of towering skyscrapers during a visit to the large construction site Upside.Berlin and the Futurium. How can artistic methods of imagination and play be of service to involuntarily migrants in disrupting future space from the margins?

Heinz-Brandt-Schule is an integrated, all-day secondary school (ISS) with Gymnasium-level upper grades in the district of Pankow (Weißensee). With a multi-grade “welcome class” and their teacher Astrid Hartwig