Kiosk of Solidarity
A mobile civic infrastructure that enables solidarity-based initiatives to appropriate public space for visibility, exchange, democratic participation and action
Kiosk of Solidarity
Kiosk of Solidarity
Kiosk of Solidarity
Kiosk of Solidarity
Kiosk of Solidarity
Initiator(s)
Moritz Ahlert, Transforming Solidarities, ConstructLab, and many others
Description
Kiosk of Solidarity is a mobile urban practice formats that operates as a social and spatial support structure for solidarity in public space. Initiated in Berlin in 2023, the kiosk creates visibility initiatives by and for marginalized groups (e.g. migrants, refugees, queer communities, people struggling with addiction or homelessness) and connects them with other initiatives. Local initiatives become users and co-producers: they determine the content of the Kiosk and transform the structure through assemblies, campaigns, workshops, counseling, mapping, protest and knowledge exchange. The project team supports these processes through spatial design, communication, permits, logistics and documentation. Moving between neighborhoods and contexts, the kiosk connects otherwise dispersed practices and communities. Technology is understood here beyond the digital: as a collectively accessible set of spatial, organizational and communicative tools that enables communities to produce visibility, encounters, knowledge and political agency in public space. The project is a spin-off of the 'Transforming Solidarities' research project initiated by Moritz Ahlert in collaboration with Constructlab and others.
Goals
The project aims to strengthen solidarity-based initiatives by providing accessible infrastructure for acting in public space. It redistributes financial, spatial, communicative and organizational resources toward groups marginalized in urban decision-making. As a shared civic tool, it creates encounters between initiatives, neighbors and institutions, facilitates collective knowledge production and enables democratic and agonistic negotiation. Its transformative potential lies in enabling communities to appropriate space, build collective agency and develop transferable forms of solidarity-based urban practice through collective use and adaptation.
Beneficial outcomes
As of August 2026, the Kiosk has collaborated with over 40 solidarity-based initiatives in more than 70 actions across Berlin and beyond. Over four summer semesters, more than 90 students have supported initiatives in developing and realizing their Kiosk interventions. The Kiosk has evolved into an autonomous parainstitutional platform situated between design, activism and research. Outcomes range from assemblies and mutual-aid activities to campaigns, mappings, workshops and public discussions. Collaborations strengthen networks of solidarity practices across geographic and institutional boundaries, while developing transferable methods for collectively appropriating public space as civic infrastructure for democratic participation, collective agency and action.
Location
Germany, mostly in Berlin
Users
The kiosk creates visibility for marginalized groups (e.g. migrants, refugees, queer communities, people struggling with addiction or homelessness) and connects them with other initiatives
Maintained by
The program of the Kiosk is developed collaboratively with solidarity-based initiatives from Berlin and beyond, and curated by Moritz Ahlert together with students from TU Berlin. Graphic design (template): Bureau Est. Photo documentation: Monika Keiler. Design: ConstructLab
Duration
2023 - ongoing
Category
Scientific
Pedagogical
Politics
Urban Development
Economy
Environment
Social
