Our Vision
DU BIST AM ZUG is both a socio-political and a scientific project. Our vision is to make cities better places—places where everyone, regardless of money, political power, social status, age, or origin, has the same chance to express themselves and be heard. We believe that every person deserves the attention of their fellow human beings. And we hope that one day this will become a lived reality not only in individual projects, but in many cities—and perhaps even a legal right to public participation and visibility.
A Spark of Closeness in the City
We believe that social discourse today is so highly polarized because opinions are mostly expressed in groups—for instance, at protests or on social media, which enclose people in filter bubbles. As a result, we often see others only as members of a group and lose sight of the human being beside us.
DU BIST AM ZUG makes room for individual voices. Our hypothesis—and our hope—is that sharing personal content in urban spaces will bring new topics and forms of expression into public discourse, create closeness across social and political boundaries, and thus strengthen social cohesion.
DU BIST AM ZUG – posters displayed in Berlin’s public space
What does our research show?
Every DU BIST AM ZUG project is supported by scientific evaluation, including surveys and content analyses. Our research so far shows that participating in DU BIST AM ZUG feels good. Many participants report feeling proud and happy, and experiencing a strong sense of community.
The personalized posters also had measurable effects on passersby: our surveys show that their presence in public space improved people’s mood and strengthened their perception of Berlin as a city that enables participation.
Word cloud created from the participants’ surveys
In Focus: Art and Personal Worlds
The content analysis of the submitted posters revealed an interesting picture: only a small share contained political messages. The vast majority offered glimpses into participants’ creativity and their personal worlds—without urging viewers to agree or disagree with any particular position.
The same is true for participants’ motivations: most respondents cited the wish to showcase their own art, closely followed by the desire to share something personal. Only rarely did participants mention the wish to convey an important message. This finding is striking: it suggests how different our public discourse could look—beyond often polarizing political messages—if there were more room for the free expression of individual citizens.
DU BIST AM ZUG Goes Global
DU BIST AM ZUG is an ongoing experiment that approaches public space as a laboratory. We aim to bring the project to more cities, test new concepts, and implement them in a variety of settings—from schools and universities to care and retirement homes.
During the war in Gaza, we worked with the Diversity Office at the Hebrew University to adapt the DU BIST AM ZUG concept to the campus environment. In those turbulent days of polarization and pain, we sought to make the different fragments of Israeli society—Arabs and Jews, religious and non-religious—visible side by side, demonstrating that every voice and every identity deserves equal space within the community.
In the midst of war and polarization, students, faculty, and staff shared images and texts about their identities, revealing the rich diversity of the human mosaic that makes up the university and Israeli society.
View image gallery
Contributions of the participants in the project at the Hebrew University
What’s next?
We are currently evaluating the collected data and designing a follow-up project. This time, our aim is to give people who are the first in their family to enter higher education a platform on campus to share their experiences and perspectives.
To the project: anikan.org
Publications
If Billboards Could Talk: Re-Imagining Urban Spaces as Sites of Individual Expression
CONNECTICUT PUBLIC INTEREST LAW JOURNAL (2025): In this article, we report on the first round of DU BIST AM ZUG in 2022. A total of 770 people took part and brought their creativity, personal stories, and messages to their fellow citizens on posters across Berlin. Our analysis showed that participation evoked feelings of community and belonging, and indicated that individual expression in public space can help reduce polarization and increase participation.
(Un)Official Cityscapes: The Battle over Urban Narratives
HARVARD CIVIL RIGHTS-CIVIL LIBERTIES LAW REVIEW 177-270 (2022): This article examines the narratives that shape the urban landscape. Analyzing legal conflicts over various forms of expression in public space—from graffiti prosecution to the protection of artworks—we point out which voices gain visibility and which are suppressed. Our analysis shows that consumption and patriotism dominate, while social and political critique mostly loses out. We argue in favor of rethinking property rights and opening urban spaces as a medium of free expression for all city residents.
Reading the Illegible: Can Law Understand Graffiti?
53 CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW 117-152 (2021): This essay examines the ambivalent social and legal stance toward graffiti—situated between ‘vandalism’ and a recognized, copyright-protected art form. Graffiti, in all its different forms, shares an implicit common message: refusal to accept exclusion from public space. We propose taking this message seriously and rethinking property rights so that urban surfaces can serve as a medium for free visual expression—a place for discussion, exchange, and aesthetic creation.