The talk addresses Markus Miessen’s work on Cultures of Assembly, stressing the relevance of small-scale and decentralized spatial formats of local knowledge production to community building and embedded political decision-making in the context of the socio-ecological transition. It reinforces the role of both individual and collective action, while proposing distributed assembly and proximity as core attributes in the production of the contemporary and future city.

Miessen’s ongoing research trajectory on Cultures of Assembly investigates the sociopolitical dimension of (urban) spatial design, articulating a curatorial impetus towards urban policy making in conjunction with spatial proximity as a tool to mediate between the individual, the collective, the neighbourhood, the city, state politics, and society at large.

If we understand assembly as a form of spatial gathering, and the bonfire as the prehistoric space of assembly, what constitutes its contemporary equivalent? The Esch Clinics, Miessen’s current research project at the Chair of the City of Esch, in collaboration with César Reyes, presents one possible model to approach this complex topic. Building on these reflections, Maria Eugenia Frizzele, current fellow at Scuola Piccola Zattere, together with researcher and writer Noemi Biasetton, will lead an open discussion with the participants.