»We are the City!«

My doctoral thesis, published 2008 as »Wir sind die Stadt!« by Campus, is based on an ethnographic community study inspired by the research methodology of the Chicago School. As a member of the artist groups niko.31 and general panel I participated in and observed spatial practices of artists, independent book publishers, radio activists, designers, architects as well as people operating »off-spaces« or music clubs in the city of Leipzig (early 2000s).

The aim was to investigate these cultural worker’s spaces and their influences on the city’s self-perception. Against the background of the official staging of Leipzig as a city of slumbering potential (»Sleeping Beauty« motif), I developed »thick descriptions« of places of pop culture and contemporary art that show how spatial arrangements have become both, objects and methods of protest cultures. The book thus sounds out the potentials of urban forms of critique in contemporary cities.