Floating Kidsuni is the programme for young explorers in the rainwater retention basin of Tempelhofer Feld. Kidsuni is a practical, ambitious and crazy laboratory, which is stubborn, playful, deep, forgetful, improvised, concentrated, serious and light-footed at the same time, and which has made it its task to enable children to do, research, enable and reflect on the city, art and space.

The public is invited to special moments. Findings or processes are documented so that they are visible and perceptible beyond the moment, stimulating and drawing attention. The aim of the Floating Kids is to manifest the engagement of children in artistic-urbanistic fields of action on an ongoing basis in Floating e.V. and in the wider discourse on urban practice.

Artists: Stefanie Argow, Simon Bauer, Alina Biriukova, James Bromley, Jade Dreyfuss, Lena Düspohl, Constanze Flamme, Benjamin Frick, Inci Güler, Martin Kaltwasser, Olya Korsun, Felicitas Mangan, Lea Martini, Maternal Fantasies, Eva Meyer-Keller, Nicole Schuck, Maddalena Pornaro, Franziska Seeberg, Sophia Tabatadze, Hans Unstern, Hannah Lu Verse, Hendrik Weiner

Week-Days with registration
9am – 1pm

We are now offering a project day on the topic of water for primary schools in Berlin. We are targeting multilingual groups of pupils, and want to welcome classes as the performative and activist approach of the WaterCostBar enables translingual experiences and insights.

We invite you to become part of Floating University‘s WasserkostBar. Floating University is located in a rainwater retention basin. Find out what it is a “sponge city” and why Berlin wants to become one. We’ll also take a look at where our water comes from, where water is found and what we put into it and why. We will find, drink and eat different water mixes together and once you have become water experts, you will make your own drinks for the WasserkostBar and for our water library.
These can be delicious, thought-provoking, shocking and funny. Let us surprise you!

The WasserkostBar is supported by Berliner Wasserbetriebe.

Grades 3-6
Workshop: 4 -4.5 hours
Registration: kids@floating-berlin.org

Organised by Anja Fiedler und Ute Lindenbeck of Floating Kidsuni.

Friday 15th of September until Sunday 17th of September
FR 4pm – 6pm, Sa 2pm – 5pm, So 2pm – 4pm

September marks the beginning of autumn and with it kite season! Rienke Enghardt’s “Weather Report” project is all about flying kites. We meet in her “Weather Report Station” and together we will label and paint a giant kite on a current theme. On the second day, we will make small kites and fly them and the big kite at the “Giant Kite Festival” on Tempelhofer Feld. And on the third day, we will present our kites on the grounds of the Floating University and take a flying lesson together.

The “Weather Report Station” is an interactive mobile hotspot. In it, small groups of participants* will collect common expressions and formulations on significant topics,  formulated together during the gatherings and around a large kite.

Under the central question “What will the weather be like?” the situation around local and international (European) issues is addressed in words and pictures. The main goal is to arrive at new and clear insights, which will be collected on a long HBX art kite that can rise and travel to the cities to serve as inspiration and starting point for next meetings.

Age 8 and older.
Participance for a single day is possible.
Registration : kids@floating-berlin.org

Rienke Enghardt is a visual artist specialising in collective art and community art. Since 1991, Rienke has travelled the world with her collective artist project Weather Report. With this project she explores the art climate and seeks dialogue to create a more complete picture of reality together with others.

Organized by : Rienke Enghardt in cooperation with Floating Kidsuni

May 28th, 2 – 5 pm

We build puppets out of compostable ingredients.

We can’t see it, but this is under our feet : life in soil. How is the soil made? Can we imagine what it looks like? Together, we will build compostable and composable puppets and create stories out of vegetables peelings. There will be no puppeteers: the puppets will move us.

Jade Dreyfuss is multi-disciplinary drewer and gives Kids Workshop at Floating University. Adriano Bagatelli is puppeteer and musician of the band “Puppetmastaz”.

Age 7 and older. Registration: kids(at)floating-berlin.org

June 14th 2023
9:00 – Baerwaldbrücke
10:15 – Admiralbrücke
11:30 – Zickenplatz

From April – June 2023, students from Bürgermeister-Herz GS, Lemgo GS and Karlsgarten GS and artists from Thikwa Theaterwerkstätten have been researching around the topic of water. They mixed exciting, tasty, shocking drinks and collected their stories about water, they puzzled and built and they came up with water choreographies. Now they are touring the neighborhood with the WasserkostBar and inviting people to try it.

June 24th + 25th, 2 – 5 pm
in the frame of (Re-)Gaining Ecological Futures: Mycopoetics

We say mushroom, and mean the fruit of a large network that is hidden from us. We want to learn more about this living creature. On the first day, we will look for different fungi in the Floating University, from mold to wood fungus to lichen, and look at them very closely. What do we see and what do the mushrooms tell us, with whom do they live together and how did they get the name “Wood Wide Web”? On the second day we become mushrooms ourselves, form surprising connections and build our own moving network, which we spread in the rainwater basin.

Jade Dreyfuss and Ute Lindenbeck
Age 8 and older. Registration: kids(at)floating-berlin.org

Watertasting-Bar: 4 workshops lead to one bar
Presentation: June 14 at three different places in Kreuzberg

Our drinking water is precious and we often pollute it thoughtlessly without questioning and changing our behavior. For the project “Watertasting-Bar”, the team of the Floating Kinderuni invites students and artists to the Kreuzberg rainwater retention basin to experience the water cycle and get to the bottom of our water consumption in many different ways. Together, we are looking for ideas and plan a mobile bar that offers different water mixes, bringing taste explosions and the topic of water into conversations on Berlin’s streets and squares. From April to August 2023, different groups will create the Watertasting-Bar in four labs. In lab we will look at water cycles in Berlin and create different water mixes from ingredients we find in the Floating University: these can be delicious, amazing, detoxifying, thought-provoking, utopian, healthy, shocking, and more. In the second lab we design bar situations and models, which artists of the Thikwa Workshop for Theater and Art take up in the third lab and translate into a wooden construction of the mobile bar. In the fourth lab we will develop movement sequences that invite people to visit and linger at the Watertasting-Bar. The questions are: How do we invite tasting? How do we let guests experience the preciousness of water? What else can we put in the water to have an occasion to come together? Or do we come together and then the water comes? Each lab will conclude with a public testing event. For the inauguration of the WasserkostBar we invite all participating actors to come together with their experiences and stories about water. And then the Watertasting-Bar will set off on its journey into the neighborhood.

Funded by Berlin projectfunding for cultural education

December 4 Open Floating Door
with Jade Dreyfuss, Ute Lindenbeck and Hannah Lu Verse
Water testing and youtube channel

November 6 + 7 Floating Kidsuni 2021 Final
with Joshua Rutter (performance), Lena Düpel (Floating Wisper Project) and association’s board Sarah Bovelett and Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius

November 6 Floating Kids Manifest workshop zusammentun
with Nicole Schuck / artist
We observed the hidden inhabitants of Floating site in winter and design very personal drawings and a huge map.

October 29 – 31 Seminar BODY MAPS
with Joshua Rutter / choreographic artist 
In this workshop, the Floating University and the surroundings were explored with our own bodies. Our research question is: How does the world around us change when we change our behavior?

September 21 – 14 (workshop) October 9 + 10 (performance) Project UNDER THE GROUND
with Eva Meyer-Keller / performer
Eva Meyer-Keller took young people underground. Looked at how living things change, grow and decay under the earth. What does the dark bring up in us in terms of hidden desires, change and beauty?

September 16 – 18 Cooperation with “Free Radicals” CAMO HUT CLUB
with Alina Biriukova / architect & Olya Korsun / media artist
For the new high seat of the Floating, walls were woven, ladders were built – all from found material. With the own camouflage costumes, the observation could then begin.

August 28 Floating Kids Manifest workshop CLIMBING AND SPINNING
Thomas Meier / Musician-Mountaineer, Benjamin Frick / architect
Who lives on the upper floors of the Floating? And how do we get there? With climbing professionals, the highest points were climbed: Flaoting was seen newly and new was seen from above.

Mai 10 – 12 (workshop Karlsgarten GS), June 14 – 17 (workshop Hans-Fallada GS), August 23 (film presentation) Cooperation FUTURE CITIES
Cooperation with Trickmisch / Julia Kapelle

June 5, 12, 19 (workshop) + September 7 (film presentation) Project and cooperation with “Climate Care” PHANTASYJOURNEY TO PLANET ZARG
with Maternal Fantasies: Aino El Solh, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Hanne Klaas, Isabell Spengler, Magdalena Kallenberger, Maicyra Leao
During the voyage of discovery to the planet Zarg, magical devices were built, the heartbeat of a distant Earth was heard, and stories were told to each other, which were recorded in a film.

July 26 – 28 Seminar RAINWATERBASINDANCE 
with Lea Martini / dancer, choreographer
With our bodies we went on a journey of discovery. With the help of choreographic games and dance exercises, we approach the treasures we found. These include frogs, stones, leaves, chestnuts, water striders, larvae and our joy of movement.

May 14 – 16 Seminar NATURE SOUND MIXMUD
with Felicity Mangan / sound artist
Children collected a wide variety of animal and nature sounds in the water basin, built sound instruments and created own mixmud sounds.

May 9 Floating Kids Manifest workshop HIDDEN TRACKS 
with Stefanie Argow / Tracker
Another time the tracker Stefanie Argow took the kids on a search for old and new Floating residents.

May 6 – 8 Seminar ROTE RUBINIE UND GELBER GÖTTERBAUM
with Inci Güler / museum educator
After collecting and identifying leaves, grasses and other material, an impressive book of prints and linocuts was produced in a very short time. You can find the “Leaves, trees and grasses” book in the Floating repository here

May 2 Floating Kids Manifest workshop FINDING THE SANDWORM
with Constanze Flamme / photographer
Using different cameras and other methods, the UniKids got up very, very close with the creatures in the Floating University!

April 16 + 17 Floating Kids Manifest workshop FLOATING HARPS 
with Hans Unstern and Simon Bauer / Musicians
The musicians Hans Unstern and Simon Bauer and participants have built huge harps in the Floating buildings and enriched already various events with phantasic music.

April 9 – 11 Floating Kids Manifest workshop CATAPULT anti-pollution riot 
with Maddalena Pornaro und Benjamin Frick / architects
Seed bombs were rolled, different catapults were built, and seeds were hurled into the far corners of Floating University.

December 4 – 6 Floating Kids Manifesto FLOATING BUILDING SPORT
with Martin Kaltwasser
Developing, building and testing of sports equipment

November 23 – 25 Floating Kids Manifesto EATABLE CITY
with Sophia Tabatadze
Discovering and testing what you can eat in Floating University

November 11 + 18, December 2 Floating Kids Manifesto SHADOW CREATURES AND GHOST LIGHT
with Atefeh Kheirabadi and Mehrad Sepahnia
The buildings in Floating University become stages for shadow theatres, we develop magic creatures and stories

October 16 – 18 Floating Kids Manifesto RED ROBINIA AND YELLOW GODS TREE, autumn edition
with Inci Güler
After collecting and identifying leaves, grasses and other material, an impressive book of prints and linocuts was produced in a very short time. You can find the “Leaves, trees and grasses” book in the Floating repository

October 15 – 17 Floating Kids Manifesto FLOTATION ZOO ISLAND
with Raul Walch
We take a close look at the biotope, paint animals and collect plants. Together we bring everything to the floating island.

October 13 – 15 Floating Kids Manifesto THE CREEPY AND THE BEAUTIFUL
with Ursula Rogg
If you look closely, the Floating retentation basin is very much alive – like a giant dance of tiny creatures.

April – June weekly workshop series UNIVERSITY OF YOUNG CITY RESEARCHERS
with James Bromley, Inci Güney, Ute Lindenbeck, Hendrik Weiner, Sabine Zahn
We have a closer look on the movements in and out of the rainwater retentation basin.
In cooperation with OUTREACH mobile work with young people