1/31
The wrestling crew TURBOCRAZY HANNOVER COMBAT (THC) on the way to the performance
You Promised Me a City
What is discourse?
We have invited you to an international conference / festival / congress on experimental urban development, in the heart of Hanover - the mediocre center - which is to be the starting point for a genuine, honest and undisguised dispute about the city. In our opinion, the culture of consensus that is all too often experienced and practised at specialist conferences, between pump coffee and battered cheese sandwiches, not only leads to programmatic boredom, but also to a problematic narrowing of the discourse. Because we believe that only actual confrontation, friction and debate can expand spaces for thought and discourse. Only those who move out of their own comfort zone can discover new terrain. This is exactly what “You promised me [a city]” should be about: creating productive dissonance: built and social spaces, imagined and made cities, responsibilities, contexts and futures - that’s what we wanted to argue about. And from different perspectives and disciplines.
1/20
Small-town lesbians against patriarchy and capitalism – safer and braver spaces in small towns
You promised me a City is an answer and a task; it is the linking of fields and questions, of research and demand; it is a celebration, a revolt, a festival.
But - how do we argue correctly? How do we tame our unease and lack of understanding towards other - supposedly wrong - perspectives and projects? Do we even understand the other side? Usually not, and this ignorance leads to unfair and unclean conflict resolutions: Hate speech on the internet, attacks on the built and immaterial environment. The biggest problem, however, remains that with all the misconceived appearance of consensus, any dissent, any other perspective is removed from the discussion - and with it the recognition for real change.
To find out, we didn’t hide away in a convention center, but went to the center of the city. At the beginning of the conference week, individual events and an international summer school took place at various locations. On June 10 and 11, the festival culminated in an all-day program that moved through the city like a marching band on two different axes.
Half of the program was created through an open call with the question “What is actually important?” to urban actors and activists at home and abroad, whose contributions could be voted on publicly. In the afternoons, experts from a broad spectrum of all professions and fields of knowledge/backgrounds engaged with each other and the audience in a series of Unseem formats. The entire program was framed by a variety of cultural productions.
More information about the program here: youpromisedmeacity.de
you promised me a city took place as part of the National Urban Development Policy, funded by the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building
We had an anthem composed especially for the event - by Tommi and Toni, from our favorite neo-hit band XIROI, who also led us through the second day of the event as presenters full of harmony:
No place in this city - Xiroi (2022)