Politics of Fear (PoF Collective):
Authors: Ruth Mateus-Berr, La Schandre Coetzee, Martin Färber, Brigitte Felderer, Michel Gölz, Peter Oroszlany, Milly Reid, Christina Schraml, Alessia Scuderi, Enrico Tomassini, Herwig Turk, Julia Wohlfahrt (University of Applied Arts Vienna).

In the realm of public space, both the rational and emotional are closely intertwined. The so-called refugee crisis in Europe has been instrumentalized by fear of entrepreneurs (politicians, media, etc.) who benefit from the creation of irrational fears among people. The project “Re-Negotiating Politics of Fear in Public Spaces” aims at inviting people of the city to discuss their personal notions of fear and hope for the future in general, with an additional focus on constructions of fear in the context of the rise of right-wing parties in Europe.
The project was initiated by Ruth Mateus-Berr.

Exhibition at KUNST HAUS WIEN Vienna: No Hope-No Fear. 19.05.-18.06.17

In her book “The End of Courage” Cynthia Fleury states, that courageous acts are becoming increasingly rare nowadays: “Humans and, on a greater level, society is dying from a lack of courage.” Fear seems to have become so overwhelming that we have for-gotten to be courageous - be it at work or in our everyday lives. This begins, according to Fleury, with the strong desire to follow rules and play an exemplary behaviour in our everyday. As we are committing fewer and fewer courageous acts, we focus on what we can lose and not on what we could gain and are collectively losing ground.
In the course of the “courage at the garage – residencies” various students of the master programme Social Design_Arts as Urban Innovation transfer their workspace from the university into the garage at KUNST HAUS WIEN. By opening up the current state of their projects they prove that it is worth to go away from old beaten tracks and bear risk in order to contribute to the change of our society in a positive way.