MOCAK and Bęc Zmiana Foundation invite you to a discussion around
Markus Miessen’s book The Nightmare of Participation.

You won’t find here advice on how to rebuild a city or even – as would be the case with theories by Rem Koolhaas or Robert Venturi – how to understand it better. This is not a book about what to do but rather what not to do. So, rather than being a ‘good practice guide’, this is a guidebook around a mine field. Miessen invites us to a specific therapeutical session to make us realise how we deceive ourselves and deprive ourselves of the ability to act for a real and not superficial change. This is a very unusual book. The author does not mince his words but tells it like it is: we have all been conned . He demonstrates how, little by little and imperceptibly, a certain ideal has turned into its own mockery. This is why this book should be read with a particular attention in Poland. After reading it, we can – or even must – discard it. But this should be done for the right reasons. [from the foreword by Kacper Pobłocki)

Author: Markus Miessen
Publisher: Fundacja Bęc Zmiana
Warszawa 2013
Partner: Autoportret pismo o dobrej przestrzeni, Polish-German Co-operation Foundation