CommunitySummerSchool2026

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The School is the Neighborhood — Summer School 2026

Last year we asked: how would we like to live together?
This year we want to explore the answer.

We are flipping the model. 

Not a school with a curriculum, but a school that builds itself. Not  teachers and students, but a group of people who arrive with what they know and leave with what they didn’t expect. 

The summer school becomes a site of production,of knowledge, of encounter, of questions we haven’t yet asked.

The format changes: The responsibility is shared. Participants are not recipients of a programme they are co-producers of it. Everyone arrives with a skill, a curiosity, a provocation. Everyone puts something on the table.

We are building a knowledge bazaar: a week-long, self-organised platform where sessions are in conversation with one another, where the open call already asks what do you want to learn. The application is the first act of the school.

The structure is porous. Shared meals, open doors, strangers welcome. Inclusivity and Playfulness is not a bonus it is our method.
The neighborhood is part of the curriculum.

There is no diploma at the end. Or rather you receive it on the first day, and spend the week deciding what it means.

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Overview: (more details below)

Day 1: Building the school together: Build a table, the knowledge board, a folder. Receiving a diploma.

Day 2-4:Knowledge bazaar: Participants map what they bring and what they’re looking to learn. A „skills board“: A living, visual menu of offerings that updates daily as new exchanges emerge.

Day 5: A finissage that reflects the process, not just the output: Showing how the school was made, not only what we made.

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The Open Call

The idea of co-owning the school weaves through all aspects.

Instead of: „We are offering X. Apply if you’re interested.“

The call becomes: „We are building a school…What do you know well (that others might not)?

What do you know by heart?

What do you want to learn that you can’t learn alone?

What would you be willing to teach, share or try — even if you’re not an expert?

The organising team reads the applications to map the knowledge landscape of the group and identify what conversations are already wanting to happen.

Open Call text:

We’re not bringing a programme this summer. We’re bringing a table.

Tell us what you know. Tell us what you want to learn. Come build the school with us. Five days in Kreuzberg. 

This summer we are gathering again: five days, open skies, shared meals. But this year we are not bringing a programme. We are bringing a table. You bring the rest.The Community Summer School is a self-organised space for learning together.

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The pillars of the school

The Hosts: 

Someone has to set the table. Someone has to make sure there is food, that the space is open, that the week holds together. But hosting is not leading. The organising team ensures the conditions — and then joins the school as participants like everyone else. We are not here to teach. We are here to make learning possible, and then to learn alongside you. School works when we make ourselves unnecessary.

The Kitchen:
Shared meals, food and food making are an intrinsic part of the school.Shared meals, collective cooking, and the rituals around eating are woven into every day of the school. The kitchen is where conversations begin and where they continue long after the session ends.We believe that learning happens at the table as much as anywhere else.(how about food experiments become part of the school to activate the senses: e.g. one day one color of food, or crunchy food and plugged ears – concert in your head,or combination of specific tastes etc.)

Building the School:
The school does not arrive pre-assembled. On the first day, we build it. The table, the knowledge board, the week’s sessions. Everything is made together. It is the school’s first and most important statement: that this space belongs to everyone in it, and that co-ownership begins before anything else.

The Knowledge Bazaar:
Everyone arrives with something to offer. Everyone arrives curious for something. The knowledge bazaar is the center of the school — a board, a map, a shifting collection of skills, questions, practices and curiosities that the group assembles and updates throughout the week. Sessions emerge from it. Unexpected conversations grow out of it. It makes visible what is already in the room and asks: what can we make with this?

The Finissage:
as Reflection and Invitation The school ends with a finissage, but not a showcase of finished work. It is a reflection on the process itself. What did we build? What questions are still open? Who is not here yet? The finissage faces outward — into the neighbourhood, toward the people who didn’t come this time. It is less a conclusion than an open door.

No Students: We don’t have students. We have neighbours, members, partakers, participants, co-hosts. We have people who show up with something and leave with something else. The word student implies a receiver 

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Why We Gather

Back to basics does not propose a return to simplicity. It proposes a return to the conditions under which knowledge has always, at its best, been produced — collectively, bodily, with consequence. It situates itself inside the contradictions of the present, not outside them.

The community garden is not a setting. It is a spatial argument. Knowledge produced here belongs to those who produce it.

This is the curriculum: not a timetable but a mise en place. Not modules but courses. Not a syllabus but a menu. Not outcomes but a shared meal, eaten outside, in a garden, around a kitchen we built ourselves.

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Our Principles

It is a school where everyone is an expert, a school of shared experiences

It is not a classroom, but a commons

It is not about answers, but about learning collectively and asking differently

The school is socially engaged

We focus on process over perfection

We believe in the necessity of practicing community

We are rooted in the neighborhood

We create space for togetherness, curiosity and encounter

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Key words:

Multiple voices

Self organised knowledge creation

There is no strict curriculum so much as a certain set of issues we aim to address (theoretical, practical, developmental), resources we hope to provide (literature, ideas,knowledge, perspectives) and open outcomes

Summerschool becomes a site of production, a site of active knowledge creation.

The school is in the neighborhood.

The participants are co-producing the school.

Open door policy: If strangers walk in we welcome them but ask them to introduce themselves.

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