Floating U̵n̵i̵v̵e̵r̵s̵i̵t̵y̵ Berlin is a self-organised space and group, where practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds meet to experiment, learn, exchange and imaginatively work towards possible futures. It is run as an association, the Floating e.V.

Floating’s temporary architecture is built on a 1930s rainwater retention basin. A fully functioning urban infrastructure, that simultaneously is home to a diverse range of animals, plants and algae who have taken root and given birth to a unique landscape: a human-made environment reclaimed by nature, where polluted water coexists with the relatively new presence of Floating U̵n̵i̵v̵e̵r̵s̵i̵t̵y̵, forming a natureculture (Haraway) or a third landscape (Clément). Since 2018, Floating U̵n̵i̵v̵e̵r̵s̵i̵t̵y̵ Berlin has been present on site as an inner-city laboratory for collective, experiential learning and transdisciplinary exchange. The Floating mission is to open, maintain, and take care of this unique place while bringing non-disciplinary, radical, and collaborative educational programs to the public. It is a place to learn to engage, to embrace complexity and navigate the entanglements of the world, to imagine and create different forms of living on a planet in transformation. During this talk Eliza Chojnacka and Jöran Mandik will present the project in detail, as well as their recent engagement on the banks of the Red River in Hanoi, where they co-produced a series of workshops and discursive events with a number of local partners.

Event details

Time: 10:00 – 11:30, Saturday 19/10/2024
Location: A. Farm studios @ Tree House, 6/4 Nguyễn Đăng Giai, Thảo Điền, TP.HCM
Registration: https://forms.gle/NnYw1fyWQvyykVec8
Discussion is in English, with Vietnamese translation

About the speakers

Eliza Chojnacka (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist. Centering her interests around poetic, cultural and social ties to food and maintenance. In her artistic practice, she employs ephemeral activities such as fermentation, cooking, performance, poetry, painting and daydreaming as a way of unfolding stories. Her works focus on practicing environmental care through a queer lens. A graduate of Social Design at the University of Fine Arts in Vienna. Her practice grew on the moist ground of Spółdzielnia Krzak, a non-profit collectively-run garden and art collective in Warsaw, Poland. Krzak’s collaborative projects focused on translating ethnobotanical knowledge to multi-sensorial experiences such as sculptures, sound installations and performative dinners. She has been a part of the Floating U̵n̵i̵v̵e̵r̵s̵i̵t̵y̵ collective since 2021, where she has (co-) produced numerous festivals, workshops and activities around themes of care, maintenance and hospitality.

Jöran Mandik (he/him/they/them) is an urban practitioner and researcher (M.Sc. Urban Design, TU Berlin, RMIT Melbourne) as well as a facilitator, cultural producer, artist and storyteller. They have been active as an urban practitioner since 2017 working at the intersection of art, urbanism, research and education as a member of Floating e.V., Urbane Praxis e.V. and the action-research project Making Futures Bauhaus+ (Berlin University of the Arts and raumlaborberlin). His work focuses on natureculture entanglements, story telling, conviviality and group facilitation. As a producer for Floating e.V. they are actively involved with many of Floating’s activities and are contributing their own programs as well. As a facilitator he has been helping diverse groups of people to work and create together by designing, coaching and moderating various settings and situations since 2016.