黑料不打烊

This exhibition is the second part of the international project Cohabitation initiated by ARCH+ and funded by Austrian endowment funds for culture. Around the world, international partners conducted local research projects, case studies and design experiments.

*Marion von Osten is one of the initators of the project. She passed away in November 2020. This project is dedicated to her.

Cities have never belonged only to humans; animals have always been city dwellers, too. Parks, cemeteries, wastelands, overgrown ruins, building sites, and the city鈥檚 multilayered architecture itself offer good living conditions for many species. Currently, the migration of animals to cities is increasing worldwide. One of the reasons is that the food supply in cities is often better than in rural areas dominated by the monocultures of the agricultural industry. At the same time, ongoing processes of urbanization since the beginning of the modern era have led to the massive consumption of natural resources and extensive land take, contributing significantly to climate change and driving plants and animals to extinction. In the search for ways out of the ecological crisis, confronting the central yet ambivalent role of cities is imperative.

Although the ecology movement initiated a rethinking in architecture and urban planning in the 1970s, the decisive step to conceive of urban space also as a habitat for other species is still pending. It is time to recognize non-human species as urban agents and to develop new approaches that integrate them into design practice and spatial production. In addition to urban questions, Cohabitation also addresses urgent political issues. The plundering of nature leads to global chains of exploitation and injustice among animals and humans alike. Rethinking human-animal relations therefore also means taking class and gender relations as well as racism into account. Only then can we reimagine how to live together in solidarity in future urban societies.