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Handpicked

Gutenberg Gymnasium, Mainz

 

Workshop with the 5th grade of Gutenberg Gymnasium. From their website www.gutenberg-gymnasium.de

“Students in grades 5 and 6 experience culture in their classes, focusing on music, art, or sports: literature, theater, art, wind instruments, pop, and sports. The culture classes create opportunities for identification and a sense of community without a sense of competition. They are supported by a team consisting of a class teacher, a culture teacher, and student mentors, our culture coaches.

In an additional culture lesson per week, six activity days throughout the school year, and through exchanges with Mainz cultural institutions, the children can develop their individual potential. Through these projects, interests are deepened, creative processes are awakened, and the joy of doing things is experienced. The climax is the workshop evening at the end of the orientation phase: All sixth-grade students prepare a colorful presentation on a common theme.”

 

“The “Zentrum Baukultur Rheinland-Pfalz” (Rhineland-Palatinate Center for Building Culture) serves as a forum for the current debate on planning and construction, as well as the social conditions that determine them. Its goal is to promote building culture, the art of building, and environmental design. Building culture and architecture, as a shared responsibility, are to be raised more prominently, in recognition of their significance for everyday life. As a vibrant event venue and meeting place for all topics related to building culture, architecture, and urban planning, the public gallery serves as a platform for communicating building culture.”

www.zentrumbaukultur.de/

Albinistraße 6, Mainz

 

“The “Zentrum Baukultur Rheinland-Pfalz” (Rhineland-Palatinate Center for Building Culture) serves as a forum for the current debate on planning and construction, as well as the social conditions that determine them. Its goal is to promote building culture, the art of building, and environmental design. Building culture and architecture, as a shared responsibility, are to be raised more prominently, in recognition of their significance for everyday life. As a vibrant event venue and meeting place for all topics related to building culture, architecture, and urban planning, the public gallery serves as a platform for communicating building culture.”

www.zentrumbaukultur.de/

Park Zrinjevac, Mostar

On popular demand we summoned a spontaneous workshop with the kids of the passersby who were eagerly waiting to participate. The news-channels interviewed a little helper and we spent a happy little while together “reflecting haptically” about the past. Above us, towering the infamous “sniper tower”.

www.instagram.com/streetartsfestivalmostar

Kneza Mihajla Viševića Humskog 57 88000 Mostar Bosnien und Herzegowina

Welcome to Mostar in Bosnia and Hercegovina. At Streetartfestival Mostar. The first of a series of patches in a beautiful little city. This one is right next to REZON – a cultural space with concerts and changing exhibitions as well as the hub of the festival.

The little room behind that.green door provides a safe space for little lego people or all sorts of other surprises.

www.instagram.com/streetartsfestivalmostar

Šetalište Nikole Šubića Zrinskog 88000 Mostar Bosnien und Herzegowina

Patch number 3 for the Streetart-festival in Mostar, Bosnia & Hercegovina. On the ruins of a library which – as I understand it – used to belong to a former mayor, who gave it -unofficially- to the city before the war. It is unclear who it belongs to now and is in some serious need for tender care. Meanwhile it serves as a canvas for artists and until recently also for theater and performances.

The architectural element in the patch is the facade of the neighboring gymnasium. Reminiscent of things that could’ve been, should’ve been, might be, will be …  – and now a constant reminder of the recent past.

www.instagram.com/streetartsfestivalmostar

 

 

Jusovina 3 88000 Mostar Bosnien und Herzegowina

This is the “old bridge” which connects the new with the old parts of the city. It carries a lot of history. About unison, but, once upon a time, also of division. Squint your eyes and you see the person jumping off it into the cold river, as is tradition. Into the ruins nearby I recreated the bridge. If they stumble upon it, urban explorers will get the stereoscopic image.
      

 

Ulica Nikole Šubića Zrinskog 2 88000 Mostar Bosnien und Herzegowina

The wounds of the past last decades could still be felt on this column. If it had words, this boulevard could tell countless stories: Almost certainly starting with lovers’ first kisses or a baby‘s first steps, then, of long summer nights out and possibly also of gun fire and last breaths taken. Now, in my eyes, it serves as a reminder of how we can transform and shape our public spaces to our wishes. A large portion of the bricks were donated by the new generation of citizens of Mostar who, by the way, not only supported with material and nice chats about history and art, but also brought pancakes and soda to refresh – a first!

www.instagram.com/streetartsfestivalmostar/

   

2 Rue d’Espagne, 64100 Bayonne

Done for the festival of Arts in Public Spaces: Points de Vues (www.pointsdevue.eus)

“Points de Vue is an international urban art festival created in 2017, organized by the Basque Country Urban Community, with the support of the region’s municipalities, the City of Bayonne and the Kaxu Gallery (formerly Spacejunk Art Centers).

The festival revisits the living environment of residents in the Basque Country, by inviting local and international artists to intervene in and with public space. In the most diverse forms, the works produced inhabit the territory for a variable period of time, sometimes until they disappear. You will find on this site all the artistic projects carried out to date, as well as resources available to you.

An unmissable event in the visual arts landscape, Points de Vue takes place every year in October. The festival offers a program for all audiences, punctuated by the production of new works, guided tours, creative workshops, screenings and even audiovisual performances. It is also an opportunity for stakeholders in the visual arts sector to come together around structuring themes during professional meetings”

1 Bd du Rem Lachepaillet, 64100 Bayonne

Done for the festival of Arts in Public Spaces: Points de Vues (www.pointsdevue.eus)

“Points de Vue is an international urban art festival created in 2017, organized by the Basque Country Urban Community, with the support of the region’s municipalities, the City of Bayonne and the Kaxu Gallery (formerly Spacejunk Art Centers).

The festival revisits the living environment of residents in the Basque Country, by inviting local and international artists to intervene in and with public space. In the most diverse forms, the works produced inhabit the territory for a variable period of time, sometimes until they disappear. You will find on this site all the artistic projects carried out to date, as well as resources available to you.

An unmissable event in the visual arts landscape, Points de Vue takes place every year in October. The festival offers a program for all audiences, punctuated by the production of new works, guided tours, creative workshops, screenings and even audiovisual performances. It is also an opportunity for stakeholders in the visual arts sector to come together around structuring themes during professional meetings”

31-29 Rue d’Espagne, 64100 Bayonne, Frankreich

Thanks for Damien and Evan for standing with me in the rainy autumn streets to start and finish these pieces!

Done for the festival of Arts in Public Spaces: Points de Vues (www.pointsdevue.eus)

“Points de Vue is an international urban art festival created in 2017, organized by the Basque Country Urban Community, with the support of the region’s municipalities, the City of Bayonne and the Kaxu Gallery (formerly Spacejunk Art Centers).

The festival revisits the living environment of residents in the Basque Country, by inviting local and international artists to intervene in and with public space. In the most diverse forms, the works produced inhabit the territory for a variable period of time, sometimes until they disappear. You will find on this site all the artistic projects carried out to date, as well as resources available to you.

An unmissable event in the visual arts landscape, Points de Vue takes place every year in October. The festival offers a program for all audiences, punctuated by the production of new works, guided tours, creative workshops, screenings and even audiovisual performances. It is also an opportunity for stakeholders in the visual arts sector to come together around structuring themes during professional meetings”

1 Rue Port Neuf, Bayonne, France

Done for the festival of Arts in Public Spaces: Points de Vues (www.pointsdevue.eus)

“Points de Vue is an international urban art festival created in 2017, organized by the Basque Country Urban Community, with the support of the region’s municipalities, the City of Bayonne and the Kaxu Gallery (formerly Spacejunk Art Centers).

The festival revisits the living environment of residents in the Basque Country, by inviting local and international artists to intervene in and with public space. In the most diverse forms, the works produced inhabit the territory for a variable period of time, sometimes until they disappear. You will find on this site all the artistic projects carried out to date, as well as resources available to you.

An unmissable event in the visual arts landscape, Points de Vue takes place every year in October. The festival offers a program for all audiences, punctuated by the production of new works, guided tours, creative workshops, screenings and even audiovisual performances. It is also an opportunity for stakeholders in the visual arts sector to come together around structuring themes during professional meetings”

Kolymazhnyy Pereulok, 6с2, Moskva, Russland

Participating at the Festival for Inclusivity, “See the world my way” – Listened to very inspiring speakers of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Guggenhei Collection Venice and Kunsthistorisches Musem Wien, who all spoke about their efforts to make the Arts available for everybody. Definitely a topic that has to be improved on. The Conference took place in the italian courtyard inside the museum, right next to the Cast of David from Milan.

https://www.facebook.com/accessiblemuseum/
https://www.instagram.com/theartsmuseum/

The Green, Aberdeen

When you read these lines, it’ll be roughly 400 years since the man named Indian Pete has passed. The history books tell us, this wall that you are seeing in the picture, “is one of the oldest in this grand city [of Aberdeen]. It had formerly been a part of an old townhouse known as Aedies House. Built around 1604 and finally demolished in 1914 it held a dark history. Believed as it was to have been a holding house for children stolen off the streets to be sold as slaves in America. […] Around 700 children would be kidnapped from the streets. Their fate, to be kept in holding houses like Aedies until there were enough of them to transport.”

Someone told me that a bagpipe was played every night, to drown the screaming of these doomed kids. Who knows really, but the one story everybody agrees on is the story of Peter Williamson. His parents “reputable though not rich” sent him to live with an aunt in Aberdeen. In a cold night in January 1743 Peter was kidnapped while playing on the quay. With the age of 8 years, he was abducted to America as a slave, and sold for 16£ to work on a plantation.

I’ll spare you the details of his gruesome return to his birthplace of Aberdeen, since you can now easily look it up online. And I tell you in advance it is a story of deep desolation, describing the cruelty of the so-called “discovery of the new world” and the horrors of slavery connected to it. But it is also a story of hope. And, as his clumsily chosen name suggests, there are Native Americans involved as well as the final return to Scotland which, however, left him “banished from Aberdeen as a vagrant” for telling his story.

Ultimately, Indian Pete was able to make a living from a succesful tavern he ran in Edinburgh, for poets and lawyers. But until this day, his story haunts the Aberdonians. Another local whispered to me on the night i took this picture, on the staircase that leads up from The Green to buzzing Union street, that him and others had seen, from afar and late at night, children in nightgowns sitting on precisely these stairs.

French Pavillion, Venice

The theme of the Venice Architecture Biennal 2018 is “Freespace” – The police came twice to make us remove the installation and get back in line.

Thanks for refusing and having our back @104paris @nicoladelon @encore_heureux_architectes ! Thank you for the invitation, thank you to the 104centquatre and caserma pepe staff

 

 

 

Rue du Chevaleret / Rue Charcot, Paris

The Nuit Blanche is a huge art-event which the city of Paris organizes each year. The whole night through, from 7pm to 7am, everyone is invited to discover events throughout the city and to follow a parcour connecting the different events in all parts of paris.  Thousands of parisians came to the streets, and also the Paris mayor herself was expected to visit and shake hands.  (Nuit Blanche de Paris)

And I was invited to install Dispatchwork in the 13th arrondissment, where I met a wall, which could hold three big patches easily. So in the course of the next three days me and helpers erected these patches within the parcour of nuit blanche in rue Chevalret. Each of these three patches took us around 9 hours to set up, and us working basically from dusk till dawn.

Paris