The Cultures of Assembly platform (CoA) has started its podcast series, which includes the first three interviews with guests Clémentine Deliss, Rahel Süß, and Dennis Pohl. The discussions are currently available on the CoA website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, and Amazon Podcasts.
The Chair of the City of Esch at the University of Luxembourg is a long-term research project and podcast series that it calls “Cultures of Assembly.” CoA is an initiative for debating and speculating about places of anarchism and emerging democracies. We serve as a forum for constructive friction, disagreement, and compromise as we advance the conversation on spatial politics and the public realm.
CoA coexists alongside a brand-new, thoughtfully positioned neighborhood agency and discussion space in the heart of Esch-sur-Alzette (24 Rue du Brill). Urban pasts, present, and futures—as well as the different publics and people who claim and construct them—are the focus of our physical place and its virtual communication medium.
Our projects encourage public negotiation through unconventional formats and research as part of a larger effort to rework the normative categories and tools of urban regeneration. We hope to create spaces of encounter that enable differentiated Cultures of Assembly and a more nuanced understanding and rendering of democratic publics in the age of the socio-ecological transition.
Within a specific cross-border geography at southern Luxembourg, where a once-vibrant steel industry was born, the city of Esch-sur-Alzette is susceptible to changing physical and social phenomena. The tertiary sector and knowledge economy have expanded quickly in tandem with the revival of the heavy industry as it transitioned to the service economy. Increased social and spatial inequality, a weakened public realm, and a loss of political agency are all characteristics of this process, which is taking place under the presumptions of neoliberal political and economic agendas.
As urban researchers, we are interested in critically debating and mobilizing collective imaginaries to shape Esch-sur-urban Alzette’s regeneration as it transforms from a hub of European steel manufacturing to a more just and equitable political, environmental, social, and economic place. We cooperate and work with a large and diversified set of artists, architects, academics, and practitioners from both domestically and abroad during this process.
Team
Markus Miessen is Professor of Urban Regeneration at the University of Luxembourg, where he holds the Chair of the City of Esch. His work revolves around questions of critical spatial practice, institution building, and spatial politics.
Marija Maric is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Luxembourg. Her work focuses on the production of the built environment through the questions of property, real estate and media.
César Reyes Nájera is a postdoctoral researcher in Urban Regeneration at the University of Luxembourg. His work explores urban social dynamics and degrowth strategies to critically update the notion of sustainable development.
Francelle Cane is a doctoral researcher. Her work focuses on the question of the ruin through the perspective of late capitalism, spatial policies, and the man-altered landscape.
University of Luxembourg
2 Avenue de l’Universite
L-4365 Esch-sur-Alzette
Luxembourg