Christof Mayer and Axel Tim​

Constructing Communities was a workshop conducted in July 2022, with Christof Mayer and Axel Tim from raumlaborberlin, curated by Maayan Sheleff, as part of a collaboration between Goethe-Institut Israel and Art Cube Artists’ Studios, Jerusalem. The workshop was conducted on the rooftop of the Art Cube Artists’ Studios, a liminal space between an art institution and the public sphere, surrounded by several heterogenic neighborhoods, both Israel and Palestinian, in the complex social sphere of Jerusalem. The workshop produced a space in which the participants both imagined and enacted a communal experience. They used local recycled materials to build an architecture that is inviting and intimate, while at the same time acknowledges with its very structure the conflict and complexity of its surrounding landscape. The participants- Israeli, Palestinian and temporary residents from abroad, came from diverse places such as Beit Safafa, Beit HaKerem, Sheikh Jarrah, Abu Tor, Nachlaot, Berlin, Novi Sad, Madrid and Prague. Among them were architects, designers, students, lecturers, therapists, teachers, social workers, community center workers, social activists and artists. The workshop was setting basic conditions for a communal meeting place, where an art institution could turn into a community hub for its neighbors; where the borders between inside and outside and between hosts and guests could be questioned and blurred. While manifesting in practice the making of a temporary heterogenic community, the conflicts that arose and the discussion around them reflected the possibility of building social ties and establishing trust, with hope that this will serve as the building blocks for a long-term collaboration, especially with the residents and community leaders of Beit Safafa.
 
*Raumlaborberlin is a Berlin-based collective that developed from 1999 onwards out of a common interest in an expanded understanding of architecture, which has since established itself as an Urban Practice. It focuses on innovative processes that combine cultural and social-spatial development with architecture. The working method of raumlaborberlin is situational and action-oriented, with a focus on the collaborative production of space as an open-ended process. They have recently won the Golden Lion in the Venice Architecture Biennial.

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