Utopian Station in der Learning Lounge

Utopian Station am Sommerfest
Fotos: Wolf Schmelter

17.10. – 31.12.2022

Re-Install Utopian Station
Learning Lounge im Studentendorf Schlachtensee
Wasgenstraße 75, Berlin

We built the Utopian Station between the birch trees of Gustav-Hämer-Weg in the center of the village for the Studentendorf Schlachtensee’s 2022 summer festival. The Station formed a meeting place and information center to engage with the history of the Studentendorf Schlachtensee cooperative and to exchange ideas. It consisted of pallets for seating and wooden display panels with pink lettering and silver foil. Brightly colored bunting hung between the trees formed an airy canopy.

The exhibition in the Learning Lounge shows materials from the Utopian Station. Six banners collect images and headlines from newspaper articles of the last 20 years. Under headlines such as The Battle of the Lake, Welcome to our Global Village or 20 Years of Synergy Effects, we invite visitors to learn about the histories of the cooperative from different perspectives, to leaf through a zine, to listen to a podcast and to write wishes and suggestions on pink cards.

But what exactly is utopian about the Utopian Station? Is it the original idea of democratization from the U.S. re-education program for Germany after World War II? Is it the cooperative Studentendorf Schlachtensee eG, which was founded 20 years ago to save the village from demolition? Is it all the promising ideas that have taken shape in the built environment of this place, some of which have failed due to practical hurdles and changing needs?
Perhaps it is the potential of a community of people from all over the world coming together here for a while to live, work, study, make art and argue about doing the dishes. And at the same time, incidentally testing forms of living for the society of tomorrow.

Kerstin Deinert, Wolf Schmelter
K19 Studios Berlin, 2022