UAU! Urban Activation Unit

General idea on pedagogies

In times of polarisation, deep political divisions, environmental crisis and declining trust in democracy, support of civic education which reinforces civil society is crucial. This approach to education challenges the established way of transferring knowledge, moving towards an alternative pedagogical paradigm formulated through dialogical relations. It starts at the level of everyday life, providing multiple “partial visions” which are subjective, embodied and diverse. In natural ecosystems, habitats are maintained by continual adjustments and corrections to the relations between communities and organisms. Jane Jacobs, extended this idea to include human communities, speculating on interacting cultural processes involved in habitat maintenance. What if we see education as an ecosystem where greater diversity provides greater efficiency in supporting life?

Berlin Stage

During a 4 month period at the Floating rainwater retention basin we aim to co-create a platform with physical and digital capabilities which can support multiple dynamic learning formats. It will act as an open pedagogical parliament bringing together people from urban or rural geographies and nomadic lifestyles, with local residents through digital and physical encounters. The mobile unit will be gradually built — as a Floating University moving satellite —  through collaborative processes active in Berlin, while the educational programme is researched and built through dialogue and the shared experiences of the Floating community and network. The UAU!! aims to embrace the qualities of “liminal spaces” or “third landscapes” as ecosystems while raising questions on urban environmental narratives. How responsive are our urban environments to the natural evolutions? Through UAU!! we aim to contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding empirical studies on initiatives for technological sovereignty and autonomy, transnational community cooperation and livelihood practices; towards post-growth imaginaries.

Following  Berlin, the UAU!! will continue its mission towards Slovenia for its first “docking” event and public engagement as a Floating Satellite. Continuing onto Albania and finally floating into Greece, the UAU!! will activate 3rd landscape spaces in the balkan context, (urban and not only) following a trans-Balkan route while questioning alternating borderscapes. During its trip, the UAU!! will support open debates, learning sessions, workshops and encounters in both physical and digital formats, providing an environment of empowerment, reflection, sharing and engagement. Ultimately, it will open the discussion among intra-Balkan communities, addressing continued and disrupted relations, feelings of belonging, longing and indifference raising awareness of their interdependence through a culture of solidarity. With the UAU!! we aim to bring to the foreground the lifelong relationships between communities and natural bodies, an ecosystemic approach in research and work which highlights interdependencies among living agents supporting modes of habitat maintenance. What if we were to see the pedagogies as a web of human ecological behaviours no longer bounded, but fully integrated into a complex flow of ethical and energetic interdependencies?

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Christina Serifi, Elian Stefa and Boštjan Bugarič