Progressive neighbourhood?  is an exhibition by Kollektiv Raumstation, exploring the construct of the term neighbourhood.

Neighbourhood? Sometimes romanticized, sometimes dismissed as old-fashioned and dusty, the idea of neighbourhood is heavily charged with expectations and connotations. It constantly reproduces simplified, normative and homogenous images of neighbourhood as community, of neighbourhood as a value in itself. As an activist collective, we also carry such notions within us. We have therefore decided to challenge these implicit perceptions in an artistic-scientific experiment: What constitutes a progressive neighbourhood?

We set out with the aim to uncover subjective, futuristic and emancipatory approaches to the construct of neighbourhood. And since special questions require special methods, we developed research equipment, playfully using the vocabulary and aesthetics of scientific research. This enabled the research groups in Berlin, Vienna and Zurich to reflect on the position from which they were examining the construct of neighbourhood.

We eventually developed seven extracts of progressive neighbourhood in our laboratories. These are meant to include, not exclude, they may bear contradictions and differing claims of space and they do not necessarily have to be congruent. In the exhibition at MAGAZIN we are happy to present our results and invite a wider audience to discuss them further.