Artist intermediaries in Berlin: cultural intermediation as an interscalar strategy of self-organizational survival

Abstract

This paper argues that intermediation is both a valuable form of occupational self-organization for professional artists and a political act of embedding with socio-spatial ramifications at different local, urban, and global scales. A case study of events organized in Berlin by the interdisciplinary cultural centre Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik demonstrates how artists strategically practice intermediation as modes of autopoietic and dissipative self-organization and as an interscalar survival strategy. These artist intermediaries add improvisational flexibility to the state’s understanding of Verstetigung (sustainable anchoring that fosters a reliable relationship between urban policymakers and cultural producers) and challenge neoliberal urban development logics that instrumentalize creativity.