metroZones - Center for Urban Affairs e.V. was founded in 2007 as an independent association. Its mandate is to bring together different approaches in research, knowledge production, cultural practice and political intervention at the interface of art, academia and politics, and to provide a forum for their public discussion. In this, metroZones relies on international, interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations. metroZones' expertise is grounded in the many years of experience of its members in research, culture, arts, media and urban politics across a network of disciplines and regions: Jochen Becker (curator and critic, Lagos/Tehran, among other places), Britta Grell (political scientist, Los Angeles/Chicago/New York), Anne Huffschmid (cultural scientist and author, Mexico City/Buenos Aires, among other places), Stephan Lanz (urbanist and curator, Rio de Janeiro/Istanbul/Berlin, among other places), Oliver Pohlisch (cultural scientist and journalist, London, among other places), Katja Reichard (artist and owner of the bookstore Pro qm, Berlin), Erwin Riedmann (social scientist, Berlin), Kathrin Wildner (urban ethnographer and curator, Mexico City/Istanbul, among other places).
