BEAR SEEKING COOL / BÄRIN SUCHT ABKÜHLUNG is a participatory staged-photography project responding to Urban ReLeaf Mannheim’s work on urban trees, public-space comfort, and citizen-generated environmental knowledge.

A polar-bear-human hybrid arrives in Mannheim carrying a bilingual classified advertisement:

BEAR SEEKING COOL / BÄRIN SUCHT ABKÜHLUNG

Seeking: shade, water, trees, places to rest, and local guides. 

Tired of appearing as a familiar symbol of distant climate catastrophe, she comes hoping to be useful: to listen, learn from residents, and lend visibility to their calls for a cooler, greener city. Her threatened Arctic habitat is not equated with Mannheim residents’ experience of urban heat. Instead, she invites questions about what makes a changing city liveable: Where do you find relief? Which tree matters to you? What would you protect? What does the map not know? Where is more shade needed?

In consultation with Urban ReLeaf and participating residents, I will select up to six Mannheim sites. Each encounter will begin with a specific Urban ReLeaf entry point: a recorded or updated tree, a public-space-comfort observation, a contrast between shade and exposure, or a question arising from available data. The selected sites may include a valued mature shade tree, a young or vulnerable tree, a heat-exposed public space, a place of relief, or a participant-nominated location. The photographs will be made in October but will address remembered and anticipated summer heat, inviting viewers to imagine how these places will feel when July returns.

Participants will develop hand-drawn bilingual signs as a recurring visual element. For example:

THIS TREE MATTERS.
DIESER BAUM IST WICHTIG.
ESPECIALLY IN JULY.
BESONDERS IM JULI.

The bear will be realised through a visibly constructed hybrid performance costume, combining specialist-made elements with reused clothing and self-made details.