HUstadt process

I was invited to make a public work for the central marketplace in Hustadt, on the outskirts of Bochum, Germany . When beginning to investigate the conditions of the area, I found a number of interesting issues and formed my project around these. The issues in question are related to the equitable distribution of socio-political power in public space, internationalisation of culture and questions around public participation.

Hustadt Project – is developing into a project where public participation has become a very important generator of the project itself. It became a challenge to the usual passivity, and non-activity of the public concerning the shaping of their environment, and the strictly regulated behaviour within planning processes. However the project also revels problems in relation to motivations, expectations and formal definition of participatory processes as perceived by official city politics.

This collaborative, consultative approach has deep and complex roots in the history of community work, cultural activism, and dialogical art.
The project circulates around questions of publicity and the public realm. It is focused on and discussed distributions of power in the public realm, the issue of “spatial justice”, and the appropriation of public space as understood by different actors.

Apolonija Šušteršič