For its fifth edition titled "re:public” the CityLeaks Urban Art Festival retraces the where from? and where to? of urban change in Cologne-Ehrenfeld. It delves into the microcosm of two dialectically opposed streets in Cologne´s popular district: the empty space of Hüttenstraße and the densifying Lichtstraße. Artistically explorative and intervening, CityLeaks explores the circular relationship between identity and memory, between the use of open space and urban displacement, elevating “the street” to the protagonist of the festival. For streets, as Walter Benjamin once put it in his texts on cities and architecture, "are the dwellings of the collective. The collective is an eternally awake, eternally moving being that experiences, realizes and conceives as much between the walls of buildings as individuals do in the shelter of their four walls."
With the campaign "re:claim Ehrenfeld", CityLeaks opens its Festival Center in the vacant railway arches in Hüttenstraße on August 31st. Building upon the processes and results of the preceding artistic research residency programs "re:build Hüttenstaße" and "re:framing Lichtstraße," CityLeaks embarks on a three-week urban expedition in September. It is supported by many actors, but above all by the artists. They give impulses, conquer the public space and set architecture in scene. Exhibitions, tours, discussions, parades, workshops and music expand the festival program, which calls for participation and creative exchange.