From 9 to 18 December 2016, the pilot project Forum Regionum - a residence program for artists, architects, urban developers and actors of the civil society from Russia and the countries of the eastern partnership took place for the first time in the water tower of the Hbf and in the Hochhaus in Oberhausen. The aim of the 9-day forum is an intensive cooperation and the development of pop-up formats and interventions for abandoned or unused buildings and public spaces that can be transferred from the Oberhausen context to the home regions of the participants. The participants are also given the opportunity to get to know local initiatives and cultural institutions in Oberhausen and other cities in the Ruhr area that successfully implement sustainable projects for the development of urban art and culture.

Participants in the Forum Regionum are artists, civil society actors, cultural managers active in an NGO or public body, employees of municipal administrations, architects, city planners and designers who place their work and food points in an urban area beyond the capital cities of Armenia, Moldova , Russia, Ukraine and Germany. The participants are between 25 and 50 years old and come from Siberia, the Urals, the West and Central Caucasus, rural Armenia, Chisinau as well as from Berlin and Cologne. The urbanist and architect Urban Jeriha from the NGO Ipop (Institute for Spatial Policies) from Ljubljana and Matthias Einhoff - founder and artistic director of the Center for Art and Urbanism in Berlin - have been the mentors accompanying the forum.

The final presentation, exhibition and party of the forum took place on Saturday, 17.12.2016, from 6.00 pm in the Hochhaus Oberhausen, Friedrich-Karl-Straße 4, 46045 Oberhausen. In addition to the results of the forum, the audiovisual festival Shiny Toys (Mülheim) will be designing the "Saturday evening in the high-rise building" with the installation "Explore sight and sound" as well as visuals, DJs and music. Forum Regionum is organized by Agnieszka Wnuczak and Christoph Stark of kitev - Kultur im Turm e.V. (Oberhausen), the alumni of the Robert Bosch cultural management program Barbara Anna Bernsmeier, Kathrin Oerters and Cornelia Reichel in cooperation with MitOst e.V. (Berlin). The Forum is funded by the Federal Foreign Office in the context of the program "Enhancing cooperation with civil society in the countries of the Eastern Partnership and Russia".