CONCEPT

Mixing up Brazilian and GDR aesthetics, KoCA Inn was an evolving-living-experimental space, or a favela-like organism growing on 62 square meters of Weimar’s main intersection. Its improvised, precarious, recycled, never-finished structure was a device to informalize the sterile, secure and over-controlled usage of local public spaces. At the same time it encouraged self-organization, cooperation and collective creativity. Out of this, an open platform with various activities, workshops, events and explorations was developed, all the while remaining an invitation to come by to share a cup of coffee and relax in one of the hammocks.

During two weeks, UrbanDÆ, a temporary research group based in Weimar and Salvador da Bahia, occupied the Kiosk of Contemporary Art, the Sophienstiftsplatz and the surrounding traffic islands. Urban creativity inherent to survival strategies was imported from the tropics and collaborative community experiences still present in many East Germans’ memories were revisited. They were embedded in an urban-artistic device that invited passers-by to engage with its ever-changing facilities: a mini hotel, a mobile kitchen, a showroom, a café, a dance hall, a black market of knowledge and skills, a library, a TV room, a gambling salon, a playground, all as if it were in a tropical resort.

As the public engaged with the place, KoCA Inn became a meeting point for unexpected encounters, a testing ground for ideas, a space for dialogue and exchange.