Buero fuer Nachbarschaftliche Netzwerke (NN)
*the Office NN for Neighbourhood Networks has existed since 2018 and involves the direct, social environment of the Floating University in the processes, informs with personal contacts about what is happening here and develops joint formats and programmes with the neighbourhoods around us. The office has the task of building up a network of Berlin-based groups and initiatives that are regularly active at the Floating University. Furthermore, the NN office takes care of the search for the “not-yet-but-would-be-good-if” transdisciplinary in Berlin and its integration into the project.
The office is headed by Silja Teresa Huppertz.
Upcoming Events
Credit: Lena Giovanazzi
Seasonal Neighbourhoodweek #Summer
Wednesday, 09.08.2023, 10 am – 8 pm
Thursday, 10.08.2023, 10 am – 10 pm
Friday, 11.08.2023, 10 am – 8 pm
Saturday, 12.08.2023, 12 pm – 10 pm
The Office for Neighbourhood Networks of the Floating University invited initiatives, neighbours and members of Floating e.V. to engage with the rainwater retention basin, the flora and fauna there and the surrounding area in the context of the current season.
The resulting program for the seasonal neighbourhoodweek – #summer edition – looks forward to everybody interested in joining the opportunity to exchange strategies, networking with each other and exploring the question of how we can experience recreation together in the middle of the city even in the summer.
Urlaub auf Betonien – Floating Islands
with Artists of Thikwa Werkstatt für Theater und Kunst, Álvaro Martínez-Alonso and Silja Teresa Huppertz
Wednesday – Saturday, 09.-12.08.2023
Waves of concrete invade the city and in summer not everyone can escape. We don´t need Mallorca or Sardinia. We found another Island in the city but we need a raft to arrive there.
As part of the “Nature Culture Strategies” program, Thikwa artists and Kreuzberg neighbours are invited to build their own wooden rafts with which they will arrive at Floating Island, an oasis of commoning in a rainwater retention lake in the city of Berlin.
Construction Workshop: 09.-11.08: 10 am – 3 pm
Floating Islands Inauguration Ceremony: 11.08 2 pm – 3 pm
Floating Islands – Cinema Session: 12.08. 8:30 pm – 10 pm
Please sign in for the construction workshop: Buero NN
Summer cuisine for all!
with LebensMittelpunkt. KulturnetzKreuzberg e.V.
Wednesday, 09.08.2023
4 pm – 7 pm common cooking
7 pm – 8 pm common dinner
Regularly KiezKochen takes place in the Kiezstube at Mehringplatz. For the neighbourhoodweek, everyone is invited to the outdoor kitchen at Floating. Together we will cook with rescued food and afterwards we will dine at the long table. Thereby we can think together about how we can advance the food system transformation. Best way to start in the neighbourhood.
Queer Nature Discussion Group
Prinzessinnengartenkollektiv with Luciana
Thursday, 10.08.2023
4 pm – 5:30 pm
Together we will take in a queer perspective on nature and processes in the nature: Why do we talk about male and female when it comes to nature? How and when did the naming an categorization of plants come about? How exactly does reproduction work in nature (plants)?
As inputs we will listen to small excerpts from the audio tour: Queere Nature and have a conversation about. In the end we go on a discovery tour and look for queer plants together. Teaser: It’s not difficult…
The knowledge about the diversity of gender in nature shows us what a variety of sexual orientations and reproductions is possible – also with us humans.
The inputs will be in german.
Building a bird watch hangout space
with Floating Gardens
Thursday, 10.08.2023
4 pm – 8 pm
In the lumber hedge, in front of the greenhouse, there are many sparrows and sometimes starlings and other songbirds. We will create an immersive tiny space where we can gather and listen to the birds without disturbing them.
Floating swimming badge: Eeepferdchen
Floating Learnscapes with Sarah Bovelett (Architect and Lifeguard)
Friday, 11.08.2023
2 pm – 5 pm
Why do you swim?
Even though we don’t have a 25 or 50m pool (yet), our pool is open and you can come by for a swim!
Access to water in our city is necessary, especially in the summer when it’s so hot, it’s important to cool off.
Where are you going?
Floating Islands – Inauguration Ceremony
Friday, 11.08.2023
2 pm – 3 pm
What will our rafts be called and what can it be used for and where will we take it next? To the Columbiabad or on the Spree?
Wasserkostbar Sommer:Edition
Floating Kidsuni with Anja Fiedler
Saturday, 12.08.2023
2 pm – 5 pm
People ages 6 and up are invited to pick one delicious, shocking, inspiring water story of our water library and create an own summer-mix-drink. This is how we want to start a conversation about our personal water stories.
EL ZUMBIDO DE BALÁAM KAAB – short film screening – installation
Saturday, 12.08.2023
2 pm – 9 pm
with Spore Initiative
Anyone who has ever been to the Floating knows the beehives, which from afar, behind the large reed belt, are settled like a small highrise settlement on the slope between the trees.
The first Cinema Session of the Floating Islands will be opened with a film by Spore Initiative, which deals with the Melipona bees in Yucatán, Mexico. The animated film “EL ZUMBIDO DE BALÁAM KAAB”:
The Melipona bee, xunáan kaab in the Yucatec Maya language, is a stingless bee that is native to Central and South America. It has been cared for by Mayan communities since pre-Colombian times. As a pollinator, the Melipona bee plays an important role in these rich ecosystems and is therefore essential for preserving biodiversity. The agroecological school U Yits Ka’an has been working with the keeping of these bees for decades, practicing it in association with ancestral Mayan knowledges and cosmovisons. The animation film El Zumbido de Baláam Kaab is one of the outcomes of a collaborative process between Spore Initiative and U Yits Ka’an that involved the participation of beekeepers, epigraphists, farmers, illustrators, poets, and local children between the ages of 6 and 15. The motion graphics used mainly stem from children’s drawings that were created within the workshop series “Meliponicultura”: Stories and Knowledge Exchange. The music score and sound design was developed by the sound studio Pacífico in conversation with the agroecological school U Yits Ka’an and artist Ariel Guzik.
[source: https://spore-initiative.org/de/programm-in-berlin/materialien/el-zumbido-de-balaam-kaab]
FloatingSummerStories – Perspectives of non-human actors in the rainwater retention basin
with Valentina Dann (free fairytale and story teller, TBB e.V.)
Saturday, 12.08.2023
5 pm – 7 pm
Professional Story teller Valentina Dann visited Floating with the TBB as a climate ambassador in the neighbourhood. During this exchange with Buero NN, it was brought up that a willow has been growing through the roof of the auditorium since this year. The willow has been rescued out of the reed belt by Floating e.V. before the reed belt were removed.
Following the visit, a story from the perspective of the non-human inhabitants of the rainwater retention basin was created, which will now be shared during the neighbourhoodweek.
Floating Islands – Cinema session
Saturday, 12.08.2023
8:30 pm – 10 pm
Everybody is welcome to all the programmes.
Participation in the program is free of charge.
Program is in german but we also speak other languages: english, spanish, french …
Funded by the Multi-Sector Funding for Festivals and Series of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
Past Events
Seasonal Weekend
A quarterly format to connect and network with the neighbourhood. Here, Neighbourhood as a concept is and will be thought and reflected upon more broadly. The program on these two days is implemented in cooperation with various actors from the neighbourhood and designed according to the season. In particular, this should make it possible to consciously perceive the seasonal diversity of the flora and fauna around the basin as well as different possibilities of interaction according to the seasons.
We will communicate the dates, the program and further information here, on social media and via our newsletter…
Saisonales Nachbarschaftswochenende #Herbst
Samstag 17. & Sonntag 18. September 2022, 11-17 Uhr
Saturday, 17.09.2022
11am-5pm #Autumnspecialdrink Kombucha (Funghidrink) by Lenny at the Bar
11 am Waffles #autumn edition with pumpkin in the Urban Forest
11am-5pm Table tennis at Floating Sports Hall
11am-5pm What Colour is the Floating by artists of the Thikwa Workshop for Theatre and Art
Artists: Debrecina Arega, Atalay Dogan, Deniz Dogan, Louis Edler, Hannah Grzimek, Konstantin Langenick, Álvaro Martínez-Alonso, Frank Schulz and Sammy Serag, Antonia Strobl
Art Mediation: Álvaro Martínez-Alonso
Is the Black Forest really black, the Red Mountain in Vienna red and the Blue Lake in Heidensee blue? What do the colours of the Red City Hall in Berlin, the blue houses in Chefchaouen in Morocco or the red La Muralla Roja of Calpe in Spain symbolise?
Colour is a fundamental aspect of the representation of a place and influences the people who inhabit or visit it. While colour is sometimes used consciously and symbolically in urban spaces, it is other times given by the characteristics of the environment and nature.
In the Thikwa workshop we ask ourselves: what is the colour of floating?
As part of the One Day Artists in Residence programme, artists from the Thikwa Workshop for Theatre and Art will present the colour of floating from an individual and subjective perspective through photographs. The photographs of all the artists will be shown as a single work at a great distance from the audience, so that the main result will not be the individual photographs, but the colour created by all of them in its entirety.
3:30 pm Open Air Piece for a post-human orchestra by Reanimation Orchestra
The Reanimation Orchestra is a dynamic group of eight musicians united by the desire to dissolve the boundaries between the roles of composer, performer and improviser.
In the performance, the orchestra enters into a spontaneous musical dialogue with the environment, in which all the sound makers in the immediate surroundings make music together as equal partners – and together they make the changing seasons resound.
Elo Masing, violin
Marie Takahashi, viola
JD Zazie, bird whistles
Jack Adler-McKean, tuba
Caroline Cecilia Tallone, Hurdy Gurdy “La Machine”
The concert is part of the Monat der zeitgenössischen Musik Berlin: field-notes.berlin
Sunday, 18.07.2022
11am-5pm #Autumnspecialdrink Kombucha (Funghidrink) by Lenny at the Bar
11 am Waffles #autumn edition with pumpkin in the Urban Forest
11am-5pm Table tennis at Floating Sports Hall
11am-5pm What Colour is the Floating by artists of the Thikwa Workshop for Theatre and Art
Artists: Debrecina Arega, Louis Edler, Hannah Grzimek, Konstantin Langenick, Álvaro Martínez-Alonso, Frank Schulz and Sammy Serag
Art education: Álvaro Martínez-Alonso
Is the Black Forest really black, the Red Mountain in Vienna red and the Blue Lake in Heidensee blue? What do the colours of the Red City Hall in Berlin, the blue houses in Chefchaouen in Morocco or the red La Muralla Roja of Calpe in Spain symbolise?
Colour is a fundamental aspect of the representation of a place and influences the people who inhabit or visit it. While colour is sometimes used consciously and symbolically in urban spaces, it is other times given by the characteristics of the environment and nature.
In the Thikwa workshop we ask ourselves: what is the colour of floating?
As part of the One Day Artists in Residence programme, artists from the Thikwa Workshop for Theatre and Art will present the colour of floating from an individual and subjective perspective through photographs. The photographs of all the artists will be shown as a single work at a great distance from the audience, so that the main result will not be the individual photographs, but the colour created by all of them in its entirety.
1 pm Artists at Risk (AR) TALKS with Rita Gasanova and collaborative cooking with the team of Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin team in the auditorium
Rita Gasanova, Ukrainian filmmaker and editor, will talk about the art of telling visual stories and collecting them in a film festival. Other members of the Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin will give an overview of this year’s programme and the festival’s focus. There will also be a joint cooking session.
Throughout her career, Rita Gasanova has worked primarily on the production of short documentaries. As a storyteller, she has focused on understanding the uniqueness of individuals and bringing her discoveries of human emotion to a wider audience.
After moving to Berlin due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she began working on a new project for the Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin with three other Ukrainians while in residence at Artists at Risk (AR) and the Goethe Institut.
The Berlin edition of the decentralised series of talks (AR) Talks, which introduces artists, curators and cultural workers who are housed in AR residencies or belong to the AR network to a wider audience, follows in the footsteps of AR’s long-standing MOBILE Talks series – Perpetuum Mobile.
This edition is conceived and moderated by Giorgi Rodionov.
The Neighbourhood Edition is funded by the proceeds of the Bitte.mit.Sahne cake bazaar organised by Kathleen during the #summer editon of the Seasonal Neighbourhood Weekend.
4 pm Open gardening session with the gardengroup in the greenhouse
This season the garden group planted a vast variation of wild herbs and [for humans] non-eatable plants – composing a colorful buffet for insects and birds. For the next few weeks we’ll continue to collect seeds of all plants growing in and around the basin creating a unique floating seed archive, including the diverse local weeds growing here.
Saisonales Nachbarschaftswochenende #Sommer
Samstag 09. & Sonntag 10. Juli 2022, 11-17 Uhr
Saturday, 09.07.2022
11 am-5 pm #SummerSpecialDrinks with herbs from our greenhouse at the bar
11 am-5 pm Kidsuni Parcours and table tennis in the Floating Sports Hall
11 am-5 pm Cool feet in the Floating Onsen
1 pm Diner_thek Kuschari cooking and dining together with Hangar1 and Kulturkiosk on the long table – in front of the kitchen on the plateau
1 pm PurpleChairAction sanding and painting of collected chairs for a feminist hoursing project with the HabitatUnit at the Workshop
2 pm Halle für Alle – Stadtgesellschaft rein ins THF! Information and Onboarding with Transformationsbündnis THF in the urban forest
2 pm Naturepool Bio-Filter-System experimenting with Lenny at the Onsen
3-4:30 pm CommonSense Movementworkshop with Naama Ityel (open for everyone/registration: neighbourhood@floating-berlin.org) in the auditorium
Our bodies and souls went through isolation and separation during the pandemic. “Common Sense” workshop is aiming to introduce back connection and sensitivity to ourselves and those around us. “Common Sense” will offer collective body work through physical contact. In this workshop we would practice different somatic care exercises which will be practiced mainly with one partner but also expand to the whole group and the space in which we are in, translating the connection and care to our own bodies into the listening and care to the surrounding.
Coming with a partner is not necessary, However participants can come with one if they feel more comfortable.
Bring comfortable clothes.
Sunday, 10.07.2022
11 am-5 pm #SummerSpecialDrinks with herbs from our greenhouse at the bar
11 am-5 pm Kidsuni Parcours and table tennis in the Floating Sports Hall
11 am-5 pm Cool feet in the Floating NaturePool
12 pm-5 pm Open Gardening with the Floating Gardengroup in the green house
1 pm PurpleChairAction sanding and painting of collected chairs for a feminist hoursing project with the HabitatUnit at the Workshop
2 pm Bitte mit Sahne! SoliCakeBazaar to support Artists at Risk in the urban forest
Our cake table will be set with up to 14 different varieties of homemade summer cakes, pies or pastries from 2pm. The Bazaar is over when the cake has been eaten.
You don’t have to sign up, but if you would like to contribute a cake, it would be great if you could contact us via neighbourhood@floating-berlin.org .
Would you rather just eat cake and donate? At the cake bazaar you pay 5,- Euro per piece of cake (with cream!) incl. coffee/tea or apple juice for children.
3-4:30 pm CommonSense Movementworkshop with Naama Ityel (open for everyone/registration: neighbourhood@floating-berlin.org) in the auditorium
Our bodies and souls went through isolation and separation during the pandemic. “Common Sense” workshop is aiming to introduce back connection and sensitivity to ourselves and those around us. “Common Sense” will offer collective body work through physical contact. In this workshop we would practice different somatic care exercises which will be practiced mainly with one partner but also expand to the whole group and the space in which we are in, translating the connection and care to our own bodies into the listening and care to the surrounding.
Coming with a partner is not necessary, However participants can come with one if they feel more comfortable.
Bring comfortable clothes.
Saisonales Nachbarschaftswochenende #Frühling
Samstag 09. & Sonntag 10. April 2022, 11-17 Uhr
Tour & Tea
The Office for Neighbourhood Networks of the Floating University cordially invites you to the Seasonal Weekend #Spring: on Saturday 09.04. and Sunday 10.04. both from 11 am to 5 pm.
We will go on a rubberboot tour with you at 3 pm (Sat+Sun) and look forward to discovering together how the place was activated during the action week for the coming year and what has changed.
We also want to have a tea and talk with you about the future of the Floating and find out how the neighbourhood can further take part and shape the place (…)
Saisonales Nachbarschaftswochenende #Herbst
Samstag 23. & Sonntag 24. Oktober 2021, 11-17 Uhr
Plantgeography at Floating
Flora cataloguing using the cyanotype photo process, led by artists Sammy Serag and Mortiz Welz of Thikwa Workshop.
Workshop
Saturday, 11 am-2 pm
Registrations to: neighbourhood@floating-berlin.org
Water Testing Workshop
with water from the retention basin, as part of Floating WEB
Saturday, 12-2pm
with artist Katherine Ball and Nina Röttgers from Polyplan Kreikenbaum.
Registrations to: neighbourhood@floating-berlin.org
GROWING TOMATOES IS SOCIAL
Exhibition
Saturday & Sunday
Keine Humboldt Gallery
Coffee and cake picnic
Saturday, 3 pm
Rubberboottour
Sunday, 11 am and 3 pm
Open gate day
Since January 2022 we open the gate of the rainwater retention basin regularly one Saturday in the month. On this day we provide information about the association and the future of the site.
The monthly dates can be found in the calendar. We look forward to seeing you!
#OPENDAY
Samstag 09. April 2022, 14-17 Uhr
Büro für Nachbarschaftliche Netzwerke & Garden Group
We are looking for plants sitters. This Saturday, between 2 and 5 pm, the Floating invites you to pick up seeds and grow them on your windowsill at home.
In a collective action end of May we will then collect and plant the seedlings together. Date to be announced.
We look forward to seeing you!
#OPENDAY
Samstag 28. August 2021, 15-20 Uhr
Benush Berlin
The Catering collective will spill the tasty secrets of non-alcoholic, homemade drinks inspired by Iranian, Korean and East-African cuisine. Bring your thirst and curiosity, we will serve you joy and nourishment.
Torhaus Kochkollektiv
Pancake Party: Food and community are what the Torhaus cooking collective and Lebensmittelpunkt are all about. They support establishing sustainable food-systems through cooperation and learning processes.
Zoe Claire Miller & Marco Schmitt
Exorzier-Raku
Get an impression of the work of our urban practinioners in residency.
Floating Sports Hall
In Floating Sports Hall you can take part in a table tennis competition – playing with equipment crafted by the participants of kidsuni workshop „Bau Sport“.
Please follow the current covid-measurements and bring a negative test, a proof of vaccination or recovery. thank you!
Past Formats
Rubberboottour & Sprechstunde “offen für alles”
Every 10th of the month, a tour of the basin will take place at 2:30 pm, with two members of Floating e.V. at a time sharing the history of the basin with interested parties. This tour is as diverse as the experience, knowledge and perspective of the members of the association. Afterwards, the “open-for-all” Sprechstunde will take place from 3 to 5 pm: A day of exchange between the immediate neighbour:ing and floating, open to wishes, suggestions, criticism and visions, in the basin, at the basin and around the basin.
NN SPRECHSTUNDE
#11 November
10-11-22 14:30-17:00 Uhr
NN Sprechstunde
#10 Oktober
10-10-21 14:30-17:00 Uhr
