INDEX

Photographic work
Renée Gailhoustet & Jean Renaudie
Lacaton Vassal, Grand Parc & Maison Latapie
Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller
Hans Walter Müller
Floating University
Incidence
Solo de paso
Caracol, Chiapas, México
An der Urania 4–10
Berlin as a territory rather than a city
Oberweissbacher Lichterfest
Europa City Rollkoffer

Video work
Ghostly Tracks
Contaminations
Ivry-Affaires
Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht!
Les Gonflables, une architecture portée par l’air

Collages
Ncaittuyre - Symbiotic City

About
Sebastian Díaz de León (he/him), born in Mexico City, lives in Berlin, where he engages in a spatial practice that intersects architecture, film, and photography. He explores existing structures to envision a socially and climate-just future, addressing contemporary spatial challenges. As part of the collective ufoufo, he co-edited the book "VISITING - Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller" (2022) and contributed to the accompanying exhibitions in Berlin, Hamburg, Kassel, and Zürich. Recent projects from the collective include ABRISSSTOP! (2023), which opposes building demolitions, and IVRY-AFFAIRES (2023), a video installation highlighting the stories of Ivry-sur-Seine's inhabitants. He currently teaches architectural design at Universität der Künste Berlin.

Contact for commissions & inquiries

email
sdiazdeleon

ufoufo.eu
ufoufo

andersurania.org
andersurania


Screenings

2024

IVRY–AFFAIRES at group exhibition Under Pressure, Adalbertstr 9 Berlin

Ghostly Tracks, at festival of well beeing, Mäusebunker Berlin

Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht! at hallo kiosk hamburg
2023

IMAGE DE VILLE Festival,carte blanche,Aix en Provence

CONTAMINATIONS, at Climate Care Festival, Floating University, Berlin

IVRY–AFFAIRES at Haus der Statistik, Berlin

IVRY–AFFAIRES at Centre Jeanne- Hachette Ivry-sur-Seine, France

Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht! - at Spektakel auf der Autobahn, own your city - urbane praxis woche, Berlin

Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht!at Delphi Space, Freiburg

Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht! at Kurfürstenstr Berlin


Exhibitions
2024

Under Pressure, group exhibition at Adalbertstr 9 Berlin

Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller, at Architekturforum Zürich

Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht! at Profitopolis,
Museum der Dinge, Berlin

Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller at Kunsthochschule Kassel

2023

Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller at freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg

ABRISSSTOP/Down with Demolition protest fest, performance, Film screening, Kurfürstenstr. Berlin

2022

Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller at DAZ Berlin

2020

Les Gonflables at KUNST RAUM STADT Univeristät der Künste berlin
2019

Oberweissbacher Lichterfest at making futures


Lectures/Talks
2025
Geschichten gegen Abriss, Vortragsreihe »TOMORROW’S. MENU« Horizonte, Bauhaus Universität Weimar

2024
Lecture and Discussion at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) on Invitation of Anne Lacaton, Madrid (ESP)

curators talk at architekturforum zürich

curators talk at Kunsthochschule Kassel
2023

Guest lecture at UdK Berlin, on invitation by summacumfemma

curators talk at freie akademie der künste hamburg

Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller, Talk at IEB, TU Braunschweig, Prof. Dan Schürch
2022

curators talk at DAZ


Residencies/Fundings
2023

Goethe Institut - visual arts project fund

Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis


Publications

Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller,
Berlin 1966-89.
Verlag der Buchhandlung Franz und Walther König



Press
arte twist 29.09.2024

nextroom.at 01/2024: ufo ufo - Initiative gegen Abriss 

DBZ 02/2023: “Gebauten Raum erforschen“ 

Baunetz Campus: ”Einige Fragen an“

BauNetz.de, 07.12.2023: Substanzielles Umdenken ︎︎︎

Taz, 28.11.2023: Abrisspläne in der City West

Bauwelt,  24.2023: Endlich umdenken!︎︎︎

BauNetz.de , 20.11.2023: Allianz gegen Abrisse︎︎︎

Tagesspiegel, 16.11.2023: Abriss an der Urania

Berliner Kurier,  16.11. 2023: Streit um Abriss

Berliner Zeitung, 16.11.2023: Umstrittener Abriss

Deutschlandfunk Kultur,  12.11.2023: “Petition gegen
Abriß an der Urania Berlin” ︎︎︎

nd, 9.11.2023: “Kahlschlag in Berlin”

taz, 23.02.2023: Rettet die West Platten↗

Tagesspiegel 22.02.2023: Kunst gegen Abriss↗

rbb abendschau, 10.04.2023: Umweltschonender Stadtumbau gefordert↗

art in berlin, 03.03.2023: Monopoly goes real↗

dérive N° 87 (Apr - Juni / 2022): »Wir sind die
Architekten für die Situationen, wo die Sonne von unten scheint.« ↗

Tagesspiegel, 04.03.2023: Verdichter der Großstadt↗

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 09.04.2022: Ganz furchtbar überlegt

taz, 12.07.2022: Werkübersicht des Architekten-Duo Baller

monopol magazin, 16.06.2023: Architekten Inken und Hinrich Baller


Impressum







Renée Gailhoustet & Jean Renaudie, Ivry-sur-Seine


See morePhotographs

2022 – Ongoing
Lacaton Vassal, Grand Parc & Maison Latapie


See morePhotographs

2022Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller
project by ufo ufo (Jeanne Astrup-Chauvaux, Sebastian Diaz de León, Florine Schüschke & Lena Löhnert)


Although most of Inken and Hinrich Baller‘s buildings were developed within the tight constraints of the social housing program in the 1970s and 1980s, they always offer more than the standard


See moreBook
17 x 24 cm.
544 Pages.
Verlag der Buchhandlung Franz und Walther König

ISBN:
978-3-7533-0052-8
(english edition)

ISBN:
978-3-7533-0051-1
(german edition)

2022
Hans Walter Müller


See morePhotographs

2022
Floating University Berlin


See morePhotographs

2020 – OngoingIncidence


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2023 – Ongoing


Ghostly Tracks
project by ufo ufo (Jeanne Astrup-Chauvaux, Sebastian Diaz de León, Florine Schüschke & Lena Löhnert)


Through a shifted perspective, we navigate the neglected spaces of the former animal testing facility at Mäusebunker and the adjacent forest and nature reserve.


See moreVideo Installation

4:42 min 

2024


Contaminations Bodies between nature and culture

with Katherine Ball


Twenty performing artists and dancers embedded themselves in sites with different dynamics between nature and culture. 


See more3 Channel Video Installation 

22 min 

2023


IVRY–AFFAIRES
project by ufo ufo (Jeanne Astrup-Chauvaux, Sebastian Diaz de León, Florine Schüschke & Lena Löhnert)


In the 1960’s, Ivry-sur-Seine – a south-eastern Parisian suburb– was the theater of a groundbreaking social housing operation, in which architect and urban planner Renée Gailhoustet, together with Jean Renaudie, designed an architecture deeply anchored in socialist values of communal living and social equity.


See more3-Channel Video Installation 

9:30 min

2023

Solo de paso, Chiapas, México


See morePhotographs

2023
Caracol, Chiapas, México


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2023

Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht!
project by ufo ufo (Jeanne Astrup-Chauvaux, Sebastian Diaz de León, Florine Schüschke & Lena Löhnert) 


Still functioning buildings are frequently subject to demolition, to be replaced by more profitable, denser structures. Buildings from the 1970s are particularly affected. Their disappearance from the cityscape was our call to action to produce this experimental short film against demolitions.


See more2-Channel Video 
Installation

7:46 min

2023
An der Urania 4–10, Berlin


See morePhotographs

2022-2024
Visiting Inken Baller & Hinrich Baller
project by ufo ufo (Jeanne Astrup-Chauvaux, Sebastian Diaz de León, Florine Schüschke & Lena Löhnert)


In their joint creative period between 1966 and 1989, Inken Baller and Hinrich Baller designed striking buildings in the former West Berlin with an independent, expressive and distinct architectural language. While these buildings polarized the professional world at the time, their projects were accepted by Berliners and remain an expression of unconventional housing construction to this day.
 

See moreExhibition

Berlin
Hamburg
Kassel
Zürich

2022-2024


Ncaittuyre – Symbiotic City

What could a dense city with a maximum of balconies, gardens, terraces, accessible roofs and wintergardens look like? a living space for plants, animals and humans?


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Master Thesis
UdK Berlin

Collages, Video, Drawings

2020

Berlin as a territory rather than a city

Berlin is made of islands and seas. Seas are voids and emptiness. Emptiness is not necessarily forests, parks, or nature, it is difference. Cities administration/ authorities do not like emptiness generally because it is something not clearly defined. In this way Berlin is fantastic... we should keep those voids, keep this feeling of freedom.


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Photographs

2020


Les Gonflables, une architecture portée par l'air 

Hans-Walter Müller, engineer, architect and artist, belongs to the Art cinétique movement and develops "pneumatic volumes" - material-economical constructions made of plastic that are given shape by air pressure. "Gonflable" is such a volume, cut and glued together from three-colored plastic foil.


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2 Channel Video Installation 

7:10 min

2020

Oberweissbacher Lichterfest

As you walk through the installation, your eyes must adjust to the darkness to see the delicate rays of light and some found objects


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Installation 

Sunlight, Mirrors, Plastic Flowers

2019


Europa City Rollkoffer

Ein Ort der so glatt und kahl scheint, das alles vergängliche und flüchtige an ihm abperlt. Ich beschreibe das flüchtige, das nicht fest an dem Ort ist. Alles bewegliche und kurzweilig verharrende scheint fremd zu sein, temporär. Durchgangsort. Nichts lädt zum verweilen. 17 Geschosse 18.850 m2 Geschossfläche 69m Höhe 6 Geschosse 10.500 m2 Geschossfläche 23m Höhe


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Photographs

2019
2025 (c) sebastian díaz de león