Activism
Or Artivism? Doesn’t matter, because we all bear responsibility against the shift to the right. This resistance and urgency must become visible everywhere – on stages, in the spaces between institutions, and in urban space.
A
Or Artivism? Doesn’t matter, because we all bear responsibility against the shift to the right. This resistance and urgency must become visible everywhere – on stages, in the spaces between institutions, and in urban space.
B
Where is the stage? Everywhere. The liminal floor, the gap site, the rooftop landscape, the “nothing happens here” spot. For us, the stage is a temporary space of possibility that exposes power structures and pulls the unseen into the light. Anyone can enter it, use it, rewrite it. The city becomes a stage—loud, quiet, or radically inconspicuous. Sometimes all it takes is stepping across an invisible threshold.
C
We dress to belong. Blue uniform, work clothes, real estate agent look or architect outfit – and suddenly we are part of the cityscape. Our roles are flexible, our identities negotiable. In disguise, we move through grey areas, ask questions and conduct investigative research. Camouflage protects, opens doors and causes confusion: is this still everyday life or already action? This is where our work begins.
D
The disco ball is both an object and a space. Light refracts in the real glass facets and is split into countless points. A disco ball has to spin, always. It draws attention like a sparkling ball that wants to be the center of attention. A temporary, glittering space is created around it. Studio night in the studio, marking the entrance from a warehouse, illuminating the entire courtyard and the surrounding houses – the only question is how bright the spotlight can shine.
E
We understand empowerment as power sharing: voices and scope for action become audible, visible, and shared. Can we start with ourselves—checking our privileges, revealing power structures? In this way, empowerment becomes a collective, intersectional act that rethinks, questions, and negotiates bodies, spaces, and relationships. The path to equitable coexistence remains a constant learning process.
F
To truly understand the city, you have to zoom in closer. The telescope sharpens your eye for details that would otherwise be overlooked—best placed where real estate speculation is inconspicuously camouflaged. Looking closely creates a physical relationship with the place. New questions arise. Proximity becomes political.
G
You have to know the laws to walk the fine line of legal grey areas. In 2012, we became Guerilla Architects out of love for one law: Section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 in the UK makes it a criminal offence to forcibly enter a squatted building – even for the police. Finding loopholes is fun. We became Guerilla Architects to tap into the unused resources that arise from speculation and overproduction in our cities and bring them back into the community. We love loopholes in the law when they serve the people and not those in power. Guerrillas don’t have many resources, but they act quickly. It can’t be done alone – guerrillas thrive on the support of local communities.
H
What you see as you stroll along the streets of your city aren’t houses, but assets on the financial market. A company buys your house, packs it into a corporation’s portfolio and sells shares of this corporation to a larger firm. This sells it on, and so on – thus bypassing property transfer tax. This can take a few seconds. Suddenly your house – with its doors, window frames, courtyards, bike racks, balconies, plants, house numbers and residents – is no longer in Berlin, but in Luxembourg, Cyprus, or the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the cocktails on the beach aren’t for you, sorry.
I
Deliberate disruptions to the familiar that challenge our perceptions and routines. Small shifts, unexpected actions, or unfamiliar spatial situations open up new perspectives and serve as a starting point for engaging in conversation with residents as experts in their everyday lives.
J
Now does not mean later, not in the next funding cycle and not after the next committee. Now is the moment in which we act, test, disrupt. Our work happens in the now: situational, urgent, sometimes improvised. Now does not forget what came before—it carries histories, conflicts, and traces with it. Now is not a state, but an active decision: to intervene instead of waiting, to act instead of postponing. The city does not wait.
K
Accomplices are the people and non-people who make our work possible. Who plot plans with us and then stand with us outside, in sun or rain. Accomplices are partners, gangs, keys, local experts. The best ones are found in unusual places – surprising and irreplaceable. With accomplices you share struggles, successes and failures, but above all the confidence that a better world is possible.
L
“We have the right to stay here!” Our mission began in 2012 in London in one of 72,000 vacant houses. We occupied it, revitalized it, and worked on it. Together, we crossed boundaries, explored extremes, and created new realities. This experience continues to shape us today and fuels our desire for change in the capitalist system.
M
Contrary to the belief that one must build large to create great value, we draw on unused spaces and resources. When working with existing structures, only minimally invasive interventions are often required to give previously invisible spaces new meaning.
N
Neighborhoods are the playing field of living spaces. They are not created by addresses, but by connections: by passing by, remembering, staying, or getting involved—in the form of chosen neighborhoods. Anyone can become a neighbor and accomplice, part of a place. Neighborhoods carry knowledge, experience, and visions for spatial change.
O
Where does it begin, where does it end? Who draws the invisible lines? Unwritten laws, social codes, signs, and street furniture define it. Our task: to shift these boundaries, to examine who is allowed to stay and who is kicked out. Public space is the stage and laboratory of democracy. It is a place for encounters, protests, physical presence/action, and everything we want to think and do together.
P
We storm the urban space: sometimes as waiters serving revolutionary cookies, sometimes as a dinosaur crushing bureaucracy with every step. With costumes, bodies that activate and transform space, gestures, and sharp words, we make the invisible visible. Local accomplices join in and unleash the performative potential of the city.
Q
Describes an area measuring 1000 by 1000 meters, or km² for short. For us, it’s a research method: we take a square kilometer-sized sample from the urban space. Like turning over a stone. Who lives here? How is the city structured? Who has always lived here, who is new, who is being displaced? Who is responsible for the sellout of the city? The square kilometer is the basis for the series “1 km² Berlin.”
R
Space arises between people, in glances, distances, movements, and rules. It is never neutral—it excludes and includes, orders, decides, distributes possibilities. Reading spaces, making their settings visible, reinterpreting them, and playing with them is a practice of intervention and resistant design. Space is action and negotiation—temporary, concrete, active, always in flux.
S
Simulation as an artistic method: We simulate an apartment, the last affordable one in the city. We simulate a restaurant, a travel agency, a moon landing, a federal constitutional court, a showroom, a real estate agent, a display board, an exhibition. We sell cookies, real estate. The simulation is supported by camouflage. The audience is deliberately kept in the dark. There are always clues, hidden in the details. Often, simulation and reality end up being the same thing.
T
Transdisciplinary describes the crossing of disciplinary boundaries in a joint project, especially between science and practice, research and society, theory and art, politics and civil society. For cooperation on an equal footing, a common form of expression and language must be found that includes everyone. We enjoy working transdisciplinarily—with all stakeholders and their very different methods at one table.
U
Invisible is not what is not there, but what is overlooked, suppressed, or deliberately hidden. People, work, spaces, stories. Invisibility is not a coincidence, but a system. Removing it requires attention and activism. What is missing in urban space must be named, remembered, and explored. Making something visible means looking, naming, disturbing, and bringing what is hidden back into the space.
V
Networking means not doing things alone. It requires local partners and distant allies. People who share knowledge, pass on ideas, open doors—always with the common good in mind. Networks arise on many levels, informally, short-term, long-term. They grow through exchange, trust, and joint action. Networking is not a tool, but a practice: getting started together, learning, continuing, and sometimes failing.
W
We is not a fixed team or a closed group. We is flexible, context-dependent, and contradictory. We emerge through action, with accomplices, comrades-in-arms, and dynamic chance encounters. Those who join us reshape who we are. We means sharing responsibility, shifting authority, and acting together. We remains open, negotiable, and constantly in motion.
X
We haven’t come up with anything for X yet. Sometimes it’s better to let an idea rest for a while than to force it. The best ideas sometimes just come out of nowhere. Unfortunately, we can’t play the xylophone. Maybe you have an idea? Feel free to send us an email! We look forward to hearing from you!
Y
Yes, the opposite of no. Yes can start a project. Yes can start a collaboration. Yes can spark interest. Yes can make a lot of things possible. A yes from the right people can really advance research. Yes is not always meant quite that way. Yes can also simply mean a lot of work, so sometimes it might be better to say no. Yes, no, maybe.
Z
Access means getting the key. That’s when we’re happiest. Gaining access means earning trust. It means asking ourselves: who doesn’t get access and why? And whether we should claim every space for ourselves, or rather make room for others. Access is also a question of power: Who opens? Access is love.