- Workshop -
Urban cultures in transdisciplinarity research experiences: The case of “Global Prayers”

Thursday, 9th, 10.45 – 12.00 Small Auditorium 2

The interdisciplinary research and culture project “Global Prayers – Redempti- on and Liberation in the City” explores the transformation of religious practice in metropolises worldwide. New faith-based strategies and practices are deve- loped by religious communities and congregations and reconfigure the relation- ship between the urban, religion, and politics. As they expand, these religious movements are permeating and changing the social and spatial urban fabric. Of key interest are issues relating to the presence, visibility, or invisibility of the (new) religious movements, to the creation of physical and media-based do- mains, and to symbolic orders and urban codes of religious practices. Applying methods of artistic research and visualisation, this panel discusses questions concerning religious appropriations of public urban space as well as the use of artistic and ethnographic research methods.
Against the background of the general project “Global Prayers”, presented by the initiators of metroZones, the forum presents two specific research contribu-tions. The Argentinean video artist Lía Dansker is working on the new urban cult of “Santa Muerte”, which is prevalent in inner-city neighbourhoods of Mexico City; Dansker studies the popularity of the cult among imprisoned youngsters. A team around the Turkish urban planner Eda Yücesöy is using cartographic and ethnographic resources to study the changes in the political, cultural, and religious landscape of Istanbul.

Speakers:
Lia Dansker (Artist, Buenos Aires/Mexico City)
Eda Yücesöy (Urban Studies, Istanbul)

Moderator: Anne Huffschmid and Kathrin Wildner (metroZones)

Lía Dansker is as a filmmaker and visual artist particularly interested in the limits of representation. She investigates the contamination of the authorialpoint of view in hybrid works at the edge between fiction and documentary. Lía Dansker studied physical sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, cinema at the ENERC, and a postgraduate programme in theory of communication. She has directed the film Study for a Paraguayan Siesta, the short films Lloronas and Portraits of the Antonio Gil, the documentaries Deep Shadows and Cage 58, and the automatic film Imaginary Biographer. She is currently working on her longterm-documentary Portraits of the Gaucho Gil. Her works have been exhibited internationally; and she has participated with her audiovisual works in international film and art festivals.

Eda Ünlü-Yücesoy is a faculty member at the Department of Sociology and researcher at the Urban Studies Research Centre (USRC). She is an urban planner and social geographer with B. Sc. and M. Sc. degrees from Middle East Technical University and Ph. D. from Utrecht University. As a post-doc, she wor- ked at the Graduate Program in Architectural Design at Istanbul Bilgi University, where she also co-curated the exhibition entitled “Istanbul 1910-2010: The City, Built Environment and Architectural Culture”, funded by Istanbul 2010, Euro- pean Capital of Culture Agency. Her research and publications have focused on urban history, planning, public space, spatial relations, social and economic geography, and spatial transformation.

Anne Huffschmid holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and works at the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. Her research areas include urban studies and public space, memory and visual cultures, discourse analysis and photography; her current project Memoria in the Megacity deals with urban memory stagings in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Latest book pu- blications: Urban Prayers (co-editor, Berlin 08/2011), Metrópolis desbordadas (co-editor, Mexico City 10/2011) and Topografias conflictivas (forthcoming, Buenos Aires 02/2012). She is a founding member of metroZones (http://www.me- trozones.org) and co-curator of the exhibition „the Urban Cultures of Global Prayers“ (http://www.ngbk.de).

Kathrin Wildner is an urban anthropologist and did ethnographic fieldwork in New York City, Mexico City, La Habana, Istanbul and other urban agglo- merations. As an urban researcher she teaches, publishes and participates in transdisciplinary projects and international exhibitions. Between 2002 and 2005 she worked at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG), where she coordinated the research project Theory of public space. Since 2008 she is assistant professor at the Institute for Economic and Social Geography, Europe-University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany. She is a founding mem- ber of metroZones – Center for Urban Affairs e.V. and coordinator of art and science within the project the project global prayers • redemption and liberation in the city.