© Christoph Schäfer
Christoph Schäfer lives in Hamburg. Since the early 1990s, the artist has worked on urban everyday life and the production of spaces for and by collective desires. This interest is mirrored in a wide range of work, that often reflects and sometimes intervenes, in unusual drawings, installations and collective projects. His main contributions include the independent urban-planning-as-art-and-activism project Park Fiction (1994-2005, documenta11 2002), the drawing series and book The City is Our Factory (2010), the drawing series Bostanorama (Istanbul Biennial 2013) and the co-founding of the transdisciplinary planning office PlanBude (since 2014), and together with Margit Czenki the programmatic development of temporary University Campus ContainerUni (2012), and the artistic planning project for the renewal of Schlosspark Leverkusen with Museum Morsbroich, Parklabyr (since 2021).
Park Fiction is a unique urban development project in Hamburg's St. Pauli district that has served as a collective platform for the desire for a public park since the 1990s. Originally, the area overlooking the harbor was to be sold to private investors and developed. However, thanks to the initiative of local residents, an alternative plan was created, ultimately leading to the realization of the park.
What makes Park Fiction special is its participatory planning process. Instead of merely protesting against urban development plans, artists, residents, and activists organized a creative counter-planning initiative. Through workshops, questionnaires, models, and artistic interventions, needs and ideas were collected and incorporated into the park’s design. As a result, elements such as the Tea Garden Island, a Flying Carpet lawn area, and palm tree islands were created, giving the space a playful and open character.
The park was inaugurated in 2005 and has since become a space of resistance against gentrification. It serves as a meeting point for cultural and political events and has been the starting point for further initiatives within Hamburg’s "Right to the City" network. Christoph Schäfer, is a founding member of the Park Fiction committee.
Christoph Schäfer gave an input about Park Fiction as part of the "IAA Europe Talk - World Art Day 2025".
