Overshadowed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, transsectoral Summer School Viadrinicum 2022 University in Ruins. Scaffolding Futures will be devoted to the role of university as a societal actor, especially in times of war, with an emphasis on its capacity to provide social imaginaries for better futures. 

The project is designed to give students, civil society activists and cultural workers an opportunity to reflect in practical and theoretical terms on the questions of rebuilding Ukrainian cities and thus to counteract the common feeling of futurelessness created by the war. In this regard, the image of a university in ruins is simultaneously a part of a concrete war reality – our partner university in Kharkiv has been partially destroyed by the missile attacks of the Russian army – and a metaphor of an institution that might have lost one of its foundational functions as a crucible for social universality. 

A combination of academic and non-academic formats will allow the participants of the school to actively explore the possibilities for a dialogue between different kinds of knowledge from academia, civil society and the arts. On a more practical level, Viadrinicum 2022 will offer opportunities for applied experimentation in the setting of a participatory urban intervention in the heart of the German-Polish twin city Frankfurt (Oder)-Słubice, which will start with engaging local communities already in the beginning of August and will continue during the summer school.

This will happen in the frame of three lab.workshops (Doc.Lab, Makers.Lab, Planners.Lab), where the participants will be able to develop their own small (team) projects with the assistance of facilitators from the respective fields.

Besides that, there will be round tables with researchers from the Center for East European and International Studies (ZOiS, Berlin), film screenings, public events, and Open Space sessions, where participants will have a chance to discuss their own scientific or cultural work.

Please find the programme as a download here.