May Communists Dream?
Guided Tours
What If Berlin
The Ringbahn as a Stage for 27 Forgotten Visions of the Future
Start:
Fri 18:00–21:30
Sat, Sun 14:00–21:30
Tours every half hour
S-Bahn stations Gesundbrunnen, Hohenzollerndamm und Sonnenallee
ca. 2 h
In German or English
12, reduced 10
As we travel through the city’s built reality, we are constantly surrounded by unrealised construction plans, lost artistic concepts and visions of a different way of living together. For the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, Japanese artist Akira Takayama invites you to six guided tours on the Berlin Ringbahn, offering encounters with these ghosts of alternative futures. The unrealised projects stem from the archives of the Berliner Festspiele and other Berlin cultural institutions, as well as from architects and artists. Takayama transposes them into the present and asks us which visions we want to realise in the future.
Over four weekends, 27 stops along the Ringbahn will thus become sites where forgotten artistic visions of possible futures are evoked by experienced city guides. The audience is invited to imagine a different city – a ‘New Berlin’ once again – and will have the chance to get involved themselves at the end: from 28 August, for a period of three months, people can vote on the Berliner Festspiele website for the project that Berlin needs most.
What If Berlin consists of six guided tours around the Berlin Ringbahn. Each tour has its own main theme and presents visitors with ideas for five unrealised projects that are transposed into the future. 27 experienced tour guides will accompany What If Berlin on the Ringbahn. Each of them will present one of the six differently themed tours. The guided tours will be conducted in German and English.
