Questions on Dwelling is a publication platform and research collective, focused on modes of urban settlement and habitation. It is managed by Zoë Ritts, with collaborators in Berlin and Toronto.

Our texts can be found at independent bookstores in Berlin, Vienna, Montreal, Toronto, and Los Angeles.

Discourse 02

“Who Is Urban Nature For?” 
Discourse, research, film series
with Sophie Marthe and Question Arch

The discourse series combined reasearch and public (outdoor) film screenings to examine informal or illegalized dwelling in urban green– and infrastructural spaces. Our focus, and site, was Görlitzer Park, Berlin. We screened films  including: “draußen” (Tama Tobias Macht & Johanna Sunder Plassman, Germany 2018), “Die Eisbäderin” (Alla Churikova, Germany 2003), and “Dark Days” (Marc Singer, USA 2000) and held our interviews with landscape architects and urbanists at Question Arch. Our research led us to question the policy, planning, and legal frameworks which determine allowable uses of public green spaces. We were interested in practices and patterns of dwelling outdoors, and in the cultures and politics of such practices. Additionally, this project follows the urban ecology lineage that interrogates dichotomies like ‘nature/culture,’ ‘natural/unnatural,’ and legal vs. illegal uses of urban nature. 

This event and much of our research was documented by Irvandy Syafruddin.   06/12/2021