TALK !N PUBLIC
In the new discursive format TALK !N PUBLIC, Angie Hiesl + Roland Kaiser take debates on burning socio-political or cultural-political issues to the place where they belong: directly into the public space. The series, which runs until 2025, invites experts and those affected to discuss a current topic in conversation with the writer and historian Lothar Kittstein. The talks will be held at various locations in the public space in order to involve a diverse audience in the debate.
13.05.2023
TALK !N PUBLIC #02
Looking for home!!!
If you take a closer look at the topic of housing, you will find all the major crises of our society and all the major political conflicts of our time bundled together. Searching for the reasons for housing shortage, will lead us to the central question: How do we want to live, how should we live and how can we live (together)? That is why the Cologne performance duo Angie Hiesl + Roland Kaiser have chosen the theme "SUCHE WOHNUNG!!!" (Looking for home!!!) for the next TALK !N PUBLIC. The discussion format in public space was started by Angie Hiesl + Roland Kaiser in 2022, and now the series of debates on urgent socio- or cultural-political issues will be continued.
The writer and historian Lothar Kittstein discusses problems and solution concepts of the current and future housing reality with Annette Paul, architect and urban planner, and André Juffern, regional manager of the German Tenants' Association of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Flats are in short supply, not only in the big cities. Rents are rising, service charges are exploding - and the desperation of many flat seekers is boundless. More and more people are being thrown out of the system. Social housing is far from being able to absorb the problems. The spatial segregation according to social and ethnic origin remains high in the German metropolitan areas. More and more single households need more and more living space per person. At the same time, international investors are using housing as an object of profit and are subjecting the housing market to capitalist exploitation logic.
The TALK !N PUBLIC offers space for discussion: What to do? Do we just need to build more? Who bears the responsibility for sufficient and affordable housing? Is there a right to housing? Is building overregulated and thus overpriced? Is less tenant protection really an incentive to build? Are our demands for space and comfort simply excessive? Do we need other forms of housing and cohabitation? Should single-family homes be banned? What about land sealing, what about landscape sprawl and what about environmental pollution by commuters? Should new construction even be banned completely for environmental reasons, as some critics say?
The event will be held in German.
Date: Sat. 13.05.2023
Time: 12:00 noon
Place: Rudolfplatz, Cologne
Conzept and realisation: Angie Hiesl + Roland Kaiser
Assistance: Jürgen Dechert
Management: Ruth Suermann
Finances and organisation: Pascale Rudolph
Public relations: neurohr & andrä GbR
Graphic design: Steffen Missmahl
TALK !N PUBLIC #01
FINAL DESTINATION POVERTY?
TALK !N PUBLIC is now starting in the pre-Christmas period with the topic FINAL DESTINATION POVERTY?. A focus will be placed on social participation, social affiliations and the consideration of factors of subjective poverty and wealth perception.
In the current discussion about the major issues of climate and war, a third crisis that challenges our affluent society at its core is almost lost in the media: Poverty. More and more people feel their livelihoods are threatened or have already slipped into poverty. The gap between rich and poor is widening, and the number of people whose basic existential needs, such as reasonable nutrition or social and cultural participation, are only inadequately met, is growing. Our social system seems to be overwhelmed by this. The public accepts the phenomenon simply as part of social normality.
Can a democratic society afford so much poverty? Is poverty even the price of social freedom? Does poverty create a space for mistrust and radicalisation that threatens the legitimacy of democracy? Who is actually to blame in all this? What can be done?
Lothar Kittstein discusses with Prof. Dr. Sigrid Leitner and Andreas Kasper the increasingly precarious situation of many citizens and the responsibility of politics and society. The audience is cordially invited to participate in the debate.
Date: Sat. 10.12.2022, 3 pm
Place: Kurt-Hackenberg-Platz, Cologne
