By the late 90s Berlin was already on its way to becoming the dense city of commerce it is today. Suddenly the music and art of the alternative scene, that had struggled for so many years to simply exist, was being sold as part of Berlin’s edgy appeal to attract housing developers and businesses that would be anything by edgy.
In the final episode of this mini-series, the question we attempt to answer is - Can squatting still make a difference in Berlin today?
In search of answers we visited the only living Berlin squat at the time, in Kreuzberg. We had the honor to sit with two members of the #Besetzen Collective and talk about what’s it like to squat in the city today, and where the movement can go as physical freespace becomes harder and harder to find.
\ FURTHER READING AND EXPLORING
\amazing book we love - Vasudevan, A., (2015), “Metropolitan Preoccupations: The Spatial Politics of Squatting in Berlin”, Wiley-Blackwell
\our favorite map - berlin-besetzt
\squatter
\squat.net
\Great place to follow the events in many former squats- radar.squat
\MUSIC
\ Marc Weiser under the name Arurmukha, off the album – 14·11·90 - Ein Akustisches Psychogramm (and at: https://soundcloud.com/karlrecords/arurmukha-schwarzer-montag) where each song was created from field recordings recorded at the eviction of Mainzer strasse, which is pretty cool.
and Cody’s experimental music.