Shadowing: il metodo e la metafora nel porto Westhafen, Berlino

The ethnography of Anthropocene is a complex challenge. Layers of meaning, imaginaries, networks of subjects and data overlap in a transformative way, modifying space with its metaphorical and material value. The district of Westhafen in Berlin, characterized by the industrial and port infrastructures overlooking the dense network of river channels, represents a dynamic example of anthropocenic stratification. The urban port, scarcely used in the decades of Berlin partition, has acquired new relevance thanks to the promotion of the water communication routes, as part of a national discourse on sustainable transport. The railway station, decommissioned in the sixties, is now occupied by a regularized Zentrum für Kunst and Urbanistik which hosts artists and planners, active collaborators in the redesign of the area. Metropolitan shadowing among the communities that live, use and design these spaces is proposed as a method and a metaphor of exploration of the historical, social and geological layers of the Anthropocene.