KasselDE
Kassel sits pretty much in the centre of Germany if you look at a geographical map. It is a medium size town with a pedestrian area and still carries a flair of post WW2 modernisation. More rural areas enter the town along the river Fulda, and the Umland Kassel itself is easy to reach and feels very close.
Kassel is known in the art world for hosting Documenta, an exhibition for contemporary art every five years. It was first run in 1955 as part of the Federal Horticultural Show, and soon became a world-famous event which attracts almost 1million visitors each time. Kassel is also known for its weapons industry.
| Region | Umland Kassel |
|---|---|
| Local partners |
|
| Population | 200600 |
| Common fruit, vegetables, animals | Raccoons, Pears |
| Tradition | Documenta |
| Scent | Lilac in spring |
| Distances from Kassel | Distances
|
A local magazine talks about some of our activities that took place in the summer.
Who holds land-based knowledge in a city and where does it become visible? Who are the women who run lasting economies? How can we share without talking?
The Rural School of Economics has been addressing, un-digging and visualising the collective findings to those questions over the last 18 months in and around Kassel.
The film Kassel's Rural Undercurrents is a summary and a documentation of our project. It gives you a glimpse into our activities, program and collaborations.
On 10 and 11 September came time for our last program weekend of Rural Undercurrents project in and around Kassel. Celebrating harvest together: by Meet and Greet, an Economic Summit, Lumbung Kios Market and Drawing Sessions. It was part of the 3rd Meydan weekend of Documenta fifteen. The result - a mix between economic summit, a pot luck dinner and a drawing school.
PROGRAM
Saturday 10 September
1:00 CET at Myvillages Drawing station (Hafenstrasse 76)
Drawing Economic Bodies Session. Together with students from the Business Management School/Alanus University we invited visitors to re-draw the economy together.
Sunday 11 September
12:30 CET at Lumbung Kios & Rural Undercurrent Vending Machines, Huebner Areal
We met Ajang from Lumbung Kios to hear more about the Lumbung Common Pot, and how the economy that emerged during documenta can support collective and networked work afterwards.
13:30 CET Walking and Talking towards Friedrichsplatz. We walk along the river Fulda back towards the centre of town.
14:00 CET in front of the Fridericianum. Geological Tour to explore the Erdkilometers. Wapke Feenstra hold a tour about the layers of the 245 000 000 year old history of the ground we stand on.
15:00 Harfest and Trans-local Economy Summit at ruruHaus, Lower Gound
This is a Meet and Greet with local partners; the dairy cooperative Uplander Bauernmolkerei, the Shared Pot Kommune Niederkaufungen, Frauentreff Brückenhof, Schlachthof Kulturzentrum , Violets against Violence, and of course ruangrupa and Lumbung itself. Trans-local guests join us from the Sustainable Business Management School at Alanus University near Bonn , from the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden, and from the Community Economies Research Network EU.
Additionally: The Premiere of the Film Kassel Rural Undercurrents by Myvillages, A peer-to-peer Drawing Economic Portraits Session, Informal introductions and presentations by all partners on running community-oriented and lasting economies.
The last, but not least, the launch of the Life in Hamar Booklet printed by Lumbung Press. Refreshments, food and conversations.
Besides the events that we organized in and around Kassel all through 100 days of documenta fifteen, we also had the main drawing station (Hafenstrasse 76) that visitors could visit at any day of the art festival. There they could find Myvillages books, program, posters, drawings from plein airs, tools for drawing and always some fresh berries from a garden in Kassel.
Rural Undercurrents vending machines at lumbung Kios
Rural Undercurrents were traded throughout the 100 days of documenta. Trade to Act was a selective range of goods and objects from local partners, which embody and represent a particular local knowledge. Items costed between between 2,- to 16,- Euros.
After Documenta fifteen ending, the remaining local goods entered the Lumbung Kios network, and keep on circulating, telling stories, and tracking artists routes across a multi-local network of traders and producers. Myvillages remains in the network as a trader, maker and courier.
On July 28-29 Gele Hailu came to visit documenta fifteen and brought some of his works, postcards and his Rotterdam based friend Ary along.
We were in a conversation with Lumbung Press to print the publication illustrated by Gele. He also showed his work made in Ethiopia and on Boerenzij in Hafenstrasse and we organized a drawing session with locals and visitors. Hanging out in Kassel, while Gele provided some funny and serious critique of the exhibitions was what we did.
On the Weekend of August 12-14 Program was all about Celebrating our joint Harvest to date in Kassel
Myvillages has been looking for rural undercurrents in and around Kassel since June 2022, making sure we notice and pay attention to under-valued knowledge and practices. With our local partners and visitors on this weekend we celebrated and shared together what has been drawn, uncovered, discovered and articulated so far about the rural undercurrents in Kaseel and near by areas.
Friday 12 August
14.00 CET in front of Fridericianum
An hour long Walk&Talk across Friedrichsplatz, sharing knowledge and facts about the 245 000 000 year old history of the ground we stand on.
Saturday 13 August
Nordstadtpark 14.00 - 17.00 CET
We set up Plein-Air station-tent at Nordstadtpark, invite locals and visitors to draw outdoors, and to get to know the agricultural history of the former slaughterhouse now a cultural center Schlachthof (Abbatoir), collected byHeiner Range. Our event is also part of the second Documenta Meydan Weekend.
Sunday 14 August
Myvillages Drawing Room (Hafenstraße 76), 14.00 -18.00 CET
Meet and Greet with all our partners, collaborators and colleagues from Kassel. We reflect on the new connections, activities and drawings made so far in and around Kassel and celebrate with cakes, fruit and refreshments.
On the Sunday 3rd of July we are invited to the village festival in Niederkaufungen. Myvillages has been collaborating with Kommune Niederkaufungen since Summer 2021.
We launched the Baumacker Wanderung booklet made by Nicola Anna Dubiel . You can download it here:
We also hosted a Plein-Air drawing in the village – the square near Kommune Niederkaufungen is our starting point. This slow village exploration is with Jan Mehlhorn, Wapke Feenstra and Indra Gleizde
At 15.00 an one-hour tour to the recently established Agroforestry (orchard field) starts with specialist and growers from the commune. The walk to the field takes 20 minutes - we stay and learn at the Agroforestry and have local apple juice.
Johannes Guttenhöfer from Jojo.TV is around to capture rural undercurrents as they come into sight.
Geological Animation and 1 KM Walks: "Der vertikale Erdkilometer".
A permanent art work by Walter de Maria for documenta 6 in 1977 was inserted 1 km deep in the under ground of Friedrichsplatz, Kassel, without honouring the geological layers this artwork went through.
Wapke Feenstra together with Ottoneum Geology Department based geologist Dr. Conny Kurz and a farmer Heiner Range did a research regarding the geological layers thar are under Kassel. Informed by it, in the spring of 2022 a geological animation was made of this site in the style of geological notes. To learn about the 260 000 000 years underneath our feet - watch the animation!
FYI Wapke Feenstra will in June and July occasionally go to the Friedrichsplatz to walk one kilometer.
We were invited to look for more rural undercurrents during the Hoffest at Brückenhof. Our local partner Frauentreff Brückenhof make space for us to collect and film rural histories and to draw rural memories.
Bring an object that reminds you of a rural place, practice or memory. Share the story at the stall. With Wapke Feenstra and Sven Mehlhorn.
From 14.30 -16.00 CET
Sketching Trade Systems and Book Presentation
We are meeting at the Myvillages' Rural Undercurrent vending machines in the Lumbung Kiosk area at documenta fifteen/Hübner Areal.
A group of friends and colleagues gather to describe and speculate on trading systems for the vending machines. We collect trade-logics that exist all around us: from donations to swaps, Happy Hours to for free. The idea of interdependent economies in the arts is introduced by Kuba Szreder, author of The ABC of the projectariat: living and working in a precarious art world”, published by Manchester University Press and The Whitworth.
Meeting through drawing together. Connecting with drawing the particularities of the space you are in, to explain it to someone else.
We are connecting with Composting Knowledge colleagues Sandra Schäfer (Akademie der Bildenden Künste München) and Joseph Rustom (Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, Beirut) to visit each other’s art space through remote drawing. Susanne Bosch is zooming in.
If you are in Kassel this summer we cordially invite you to join the drawing sessions both within and outside of documenta venues, and some will be online. We have equipped a Composting Knowledge Drawing Room on the 3rd floor at Hafenstraße 76, and we have a mobile Plein Air Drawing Kit to set up sessions anywhere, for example at ruruHaus, at Lumbung Kios or in the Fulda Aue.
Mini-MAJELIS
Rural School of Economics
Drawing towards Cultural Resilience and future-past Economies
25th May 2022: a day of meeting friends and colleagues online and at ruruHaus , to compost knowledge by drawing together, talking about female resistance and a potluck-dinner.
At ruruHaus, Ob. Königsstraße 43, 34117 Kassel
The plan of the day:
12.00
Welcome by Myvillages and ruruHaus (all English)
Introducing the Rural School of Economics, local partners and learning together in and around Kassel. With Kathrin Böhm and Wapke Feenstra from Myvillages. Introducing the programme for the day and moderator Amira El Ahl
12.30
Documentation showing the communal coach trip to Upländer Bauernmolkerei the day before. The dairy knowledge held by everyone who came was shared whilst making cheese together. The trip was organised in cooperation withFrauentreff Brückenhof, Kassel.
13.30
Multi-local Drawing Class – an introduction to sharing local places through live drawing. A slow online and on-site event guided by Myvillages.
15.00
Break – wherever you are. If you can, continue to draw on a table cloth in front of you. At ruruHaus we will also prepare the pot-luck dinner. The live-stream stays on.
16.00
“The Face of the Revolution is Female” is the first of two online dialogues that day, and focuses on the role of women in change and cultural revolution, with Belarusian philosopher and author Olga Shparaga, cultural manager and activist Alina Dzeravianka and researcher Oksana Zaporozhets. Moderator: Amira El Ahl (English and German)
17.00
Commoning on the Scale of the Everyday discusses lived systems of creating ecosystems and new economic imaginaries. Cultural Producer and organizer Marianna Takou will introduce the role of funding systems for art in undoing the colonial binary of global north and south. Researcher and community organiser Bianca Elzenbaumer focuses her work on supporting and creating community economies and commons in the Italian Alps.
Moderator: Amira El Ahl (English and German)
18.00
Hang-Out and a Lumbung-Myvillages-Potluck-Talk – we have invited friends, partners, ruruHaus members and Lumbung artists guests to bring some food and drinks and talk about rural undercurrents. Table cloths are our new canvas and Amira El Ahl and Johannes Guttenhöferare roaming with a mic and camera to livestream the gathering and to find out what’s on the tables.
20.00
End
A day trip by mini-bus to Upländer Bauernmolkerei in co-operation with Frauentreff Brückenhof, ruruHaus family, Lumbungs artists and colleagues and friends. Dairy knowledge from many different places is meeting during a cheese making workshop at the Milk Museum.
First Plein Air Drawing Session in Kassel during Kulturzentrum Schlachthof 's Wildwuchs event at Nordstadtpark. Drawing what you see in front of you is also seeing what you know of what you see :-)
Finally we have confirmation that Mondriaan Fund will support our plans in Kassel.
Wapke drives from Rotterdam to Kassel to visit again Frauentreff Brückenhof and to make plans for the summer with Julia, Birgit and Kibar Kay Delibas.
Tyuki Imamura makes a contact to Connie Kurz, geologist at Ottoneum, the Natural History Museum.
Julia Sarisetiati and Ajeng Nurul Aini in Kassel
Amira is introducing us to Johannes Guttenhöfer from jojo-tv.
The topic is: art within a corporate context. The case study is Lumbung within Documenta gGmbH. Kathrin is exploring with business students at the Alanus University how both forms of economies can sit together.
Tyuki Imamura is joining online to explain Lumbung as a practice, not a concept.
| Region | Umland Kassel |
|---|---|
| Local partners |
|
| Population | 200600 |
| Common fruit, vegetables, animals | Raccoons, Pears |
| Tradition | Documenta |
| Scent | Lilac in spring |
| Distances from Kassel | Distances
|