Zu Verschenken (to give) is an ongoing project that explores the phenomena of a specific informal economy in the streets of Berlin operating slightly outside the margins of the law and beyond capitalistic exchange.

What Berliners don’t need anymore, they don’t throw away, but leave it in the streets. Whatever one finds in the streets, can be taken home. It is a strange unspoken agreement, everybody knows it, most accept it and many take part in this social practice.

There is no exchange transaction between giver and taker. It is a transfer that works in two independent actions: the object is placed in the street, often with a little note that says “zu verschenken” (to give), whoever passing by recognizes it as a finding, takes it home.

The status of these objects is some kind of limbo: between ownerships, potentially useful but decaying outdoors, displayed for an unconditional appropriation, but illegal.

As if they were price tags they have little notes attached to them, instead, this is not what they are. They say “To give”, “To take away”, “Clean and disinfected”, “Dear neighbor, it is clear that no one is interested in this stuff, it would be good if you could take care of them yourself. Thank you!”  In contrast to price tags, they are not the names for the abstract phenomena of economic value, but they evaluate the use value in a communicative exchange between giver and taker.

The city becomes a depot - storage of free objects that appear, disappear, and eventually reappear in a constantly changing constellation. The impossible collection of these temporary available elements constitutes an infinite inventory and a new mapping of the city, that can only be grasped by fragments and never completed.