In recent years, Berlin and other comparable cities have sounded the alarm over the disappearance of alternative spaces and clubs as a symptom of a fundamental change in urban society. Gentrification, housing shortages, rising rents and changing demographics make it more and more difficult to find and maintain places that can serve as retreats for artists and marginalized communities alike. Often, however, such places are experimental spaces for social utopias, alternative forms of coexistence and interaction. In addition, they are places for innovation: culturally, technologically and socially. What does it mean for liberal societies when such places disappear, become less accessible or marginalized? How do they have to be designed? Can a society afford to lose such spaces? What can it do to retain them? In addition to artists, activists and audiences, what role can scientists, politicians or industry play?

Researchers of the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script – SCRIPTS“ and the Berlin Clubcommission as well as actors from the arts and culture scene discuss these and other questions to foster an intersectoral knowledge exchange between theory and practice, between science and society. Attendees can give their own impulses and use interactive tools to participate in the discussion.

This event is presented by the Berlin University Alliance. The Berlin University Alliance is a consortium of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin und Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Together they aim to make Berlin an integrated research environment across all boundaries.

Attending the Event

This event can be attended digitally via livestream or in-person with a limited on-site audience at the Museum of Natural History.

Livestream: On YouTube. Link: https://youtu.be/ZpCp3OAW_Tw

On site: If you would like to attend the event on-site, please register by sending your name and a short statement on what interests you about this discussion at knowledge-exchange@berlin-university-alliance.de.

Due to the current situation, we are required to ask for the contact information of each person entering the Museum of Natural History in accordance with the Protection Against Infection Act. We therefore require the following data from all persons who register: First name, last name, address, telephone number and email address.

On-site the protective and hygienic measures of the Museum of Natural History apply. The so-called 3G rule (for „geimpft, genesen oder getestet“, i.e. „vaccinated, recovered or tested“) will be applied: Anyone who is not fully vaccinated or is not considered recovered will be required to provide a recent negative Covid-19 test. Visiting the event is permitted with a medical face mask only.

The registration data will be stored by Berlin University Alliance for the purpose of organizing the event as well as for any subsequent contact follow-up and will also be shared with the organizers of Berlin Science Week and the Museum of Natural History for this purpose.