City of Play

The Rhine-Ruhr region, Germany's largest metropolitain, is characterised by contrasts and cultural diversity. City of Play picks up on this special dynamic and accompanies the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games with a large-scale art and culture project. An interactive network of installations, performances and urban interventions will be created in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Duisburg and Essen, combining sport, art and science. Activities such as bicycle parades, performative boat tours and city tours invite people to actively participate and experience new forms of urban coexistence - playfully, creatively and collaboratively.

Transurban

Commissioned by: Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia

Mülheim an der Ruhr – Play with Perspectives (24 May – 8 June 2025)

In Mülheim an der Ruhr, the historic railway bridge with its empty railway arches, the cycle highway and the town hall market will become an interactive art and experience landscape. Local and international artists are redesigning urban spaces - with large murals, floor paintings, performative walks and participatory installations and actions. Visitorsget involved themselves, play and experience the city from a new perspective.

Read more

Highlights

Experiencing the city through play. The playground is a large-scale architectural installation. It travels through the Ruhr area, transforming urban spaces into playgrounds. The public space becomes a place for encounters, play, and art. Workshops, art performances, city games, and an exhibition on "Play in Art" invite visitors to PARTICIPATE – with music, happenings, a kiosk, and urban furniture for hangouts.

  • The exhibition takes visitors on a walk trough the city, integrating into the urban fabric and its architecture. There is a lot to discover and, above all, to join in with.

  • The exhibition presents different perspectives on the theme of play in contemporary art. It includes artworks and documentary projects.

Learn more

The City of Play celebrates its move from Duisburg to Essen. Its loud, colorful and diverse parade on bicycles travels along the Radschnellweg through the Ruhr area. Mobile sound systems, colourful interventions, and artistically decorated bikes accompany the procession. Together, we take back the streets and burn fat instead of oil. The final route is still a work in progress. Further information will follow.

  • The City of Play travels from Mülheim to Duisburg along the Rhine and Ruhr. For this, the artist Frank Bölter folds a life-sized origami boat and sails it along the river. The journey continues via the Ruhr to Duisburg’s Inner Harbour.

  • The origami boat is part of a three-piece sculptural series and will be folded in Mülheim together with the audience.

Call for Action

  • A week of workshops with international artists invites participants to explore the public space through artistic and playful approaches.

  • Under the guidance of international artists, a multi-stage, interdisciplinary workshop programme will be developed alongside a public programme. In five workshop modules, participants of the Summer School will learn about the theory and practice of urban intervention, based on the idea of a right to the city.

  • The setting for this is the Essen underground system. The U-Bahn stations and trains on line U11, from Essen Hauptbahnhof to Gruga, will be artistically hacked and transformed into public art spaces.

  • In conjunction with the City of Play exhibition, a programme will emerge as a parcours through the urban environment, inviting discovery and participation.

Call for Action

Under the slogan “Bridging Gaps,” the City of Play presents a diverse programme of New Circus. Acts featuring juggling, parkour, freerunning, urban dance, and aerial artistry come together playfully in a “programme in motion.” This performance highlights the architecture of the railway viaduct with its vacant train arches and the adjacent Ruhr Bridge.

  • Artist Coco Bergholm portrays slogans and quotes on urban landmarks along the railway line between Duisburg, Mülheim an der Ruhr, and Essen.

  • The artist OX from France creates artistic interventions on billboards and buildings. Ad Bustings will be found in all three Host Cities.