Our Dates

A person, Ruth Buchanan, in winter clothing stands in front of a bush and picks something

Moenchengladbach: Kick-off of Ruth Buchanan's project with workshops and films

We kick off Ruth Buchanan's work A garden with bridges (spine, stomach, throat, ear) for the New Patrons of Moenchengladbach with a three-part workshop series starting in June 2021. In collaborative formats, Ruth Buchanan will introduce the content of the commission and the center points of the patrons group. Topics such as work and working life, health and movement, experience of self and other come up in the workshops and enable a temporary coming together of different groups and people on the Abteiberg in Moenchengladbach.

The events take place as a cooperation of the Kunststiftung im Museum Abteiberg with the Arbeitslosenzentrum Moenchengladbach e.V. and the Stiftisches Humanistisches Gymnasium.

WORKSHOPS

No such things as weeds: Care, growth, regeneration.

SATURDAY, 26.6.2021, 10 am–12 pm and 1–3pm

10 am–12 pm: Online lecture with Kobe Matthys (Zenne Garden) followed by a conversation.
1–3pm: Visit to the local EWILPA wild plant park.
Free of charge, in German and English, registration at schaum@neueauftraggeber.de

FRIDAY 3.9.2021, 2–5 pm

Wild plant workshop with Caroline Pekle in the garden of the Arbeitslosenzentrum Moenchengladbach e.V.
Lüpertzender Str. 69, 41061 Moenchengladbach
Free of charge, in German, registration at schaum@neueauftraggeber.de

These sessions are an opportunity to reconsider the arc of developing a (community) garden, the process that this entails and the relationships this process engenders—relationships toward a community but also toward ourselves. In a location requiring regeneration on many levels, the site as historically loaded with authoritarianism, and as a reflection of a city that has faced radical transition due to changes in industrial processes, late capitalism, and shifts in the way we use our cities.

The workshop welcomes two garden practitioners to share their experiences and knowledge with the unemployment center garden users and their community and connects with local permaculture practitioner Meike Koppmann who leads EWILPA.

Kobe Matthys is an artist from Brussels and a member of the collective Zenne Garden, a regenerative community garden project in a former industrial zone of Brussels. He will offer insight into this process, as well as introduce the concept of a garden charter and user library all of which is grounded in the concept “the knowledge is already here, we just have to engage”. This online session will be complimented by tours through EWILPA, a local project already engaging with this work.

Caroline Pekle is a holistic practitioner living in Northern Bavaria. She will lead a hands-on session where she introduces us to several plants growing on the site and the many benefits they can offer us. We’ll learn how to make nourishing infusions with the plant for ourselves as well as for the garden, how to harvest and dry, and finally how to embed these plants into our diet for access to their diverse benefits.

Where does my body belong? Research in motion: from and into the sensory body

SATURDAY, 4.9.2021, 10AM–1PM AND 3–6PM

A Gaga/people and Somatic Sequencing workshop with Tanja Saban
Suitable for people from the age of 14 and over. No previous experience required.
Sports hall of the Stiftisches Humanistisches Gymnasium
Abteistraße 17, 41061 Moenchengladbach
Free of charge, in German, registration with indication of the desired time period at schaum@neueauftraggeber.de. This is the same workshop offered at two times.

Expanding on the concepts of regeneration and care, this workshop explores physical awareness and the powerful relationships that can emerge as you tune into your sensory self, networking our physical self with our more abstract psyche and subsequently setting into motion our relationship with our surroundings: physical, cultural, social, and economical. Each iteration of this half day workshop will be structured in two parts Gaga/people and Somatic Sequencing.

Gaga/people is a movement language that offers a framework in which the participants connect with the body and their imagination, experience physical sensations, practice an expanded understanding of agility, encounter explosive power and the joy of movement in an inviting atmosphere that can accommodate all mobility levels. The participants are guided through a series of evocative instructions that sensitize and reinforce the awareness of body sensations. Not dissimilar to developing a garden, this workshop overlays and condenses, creating a multi-sensory experience. The improvisational nature of the research enables each participant to have a very personal connection with Gaga.

The Somatic Sequencing session will expand on this and focus on the way the quality of our perception influences the quality of our movement. We awaken the sensory body and immerse ourselves in our inner landscapes, our anatomy. By visualizing anatomical structures, touching and moving, we explore different body layers and their function. A differentiated perception refines the body awareness and creates space for reorganization and expansion of our movement patterns. We explore where and how movement is initiated, how it continues in the body, how it orchestrates rhythm and textures. Fine listening into our microcosm expands our perception and articulation skills on a variety of scales as we relate to ourselves and the wider contexts in which we function.

Midnight / Worker: History, temporality and context 
Film program hosted at Museum Abteiberg

SUNDAY, 19.9.2021, 3 PM

Berwick Street Collective: Nightcleaners, 1975
16mm film, shown as HD video, 90 minutes, OV (English).

Free of charge, registration at schaum@neueauftraggeber.de
Museum Abteiberg, Abteistraße 27, 41061 Moenchengladbach

SUNDAY, 26.9.2021, 3 PM

Andrea Büttner: What is so terrible about craft? / Die Produkte der menschlichen Hand, 2019
Two-channel video, sound, 34 minutes, OV (German with German subtitles for the hearing impaired)
Donated by Outset Germany_Switzerland, Museum Abteiberg Collection

Rosalind Nashashibi: Vivian ́s Garden, 2017
16mm film, shown as HD video, color/sound, 29:50 minutes, OV (English, German)

Maya Schweizer: Voices and Shells, 2020.
Video, color, 18 minutes, OV (French with English and German subtitles)

Free of charge, registration at schaum@neueauftraggeber.de
Museum Abteiberg, Abteistraße 27, 41061 Moenchengladbach

This film program brings the concepts of care and physicality as explored in the workshops together by looking at them through the relationships that unfold between our working bodies and our physical environments, or broadly between spatial and temporal parameters of participation in the socio-economic sphere. Presenting a landmark work of British labor politics from the 1970s with recent work by three women filmmakers we begin to access the contingency at stake for our place within our own communities and society at large. These works span the documentary to the intimate, and offer a textured insight into the concept of the working (and thus living and acting) human being. Viewed in a group these works underscore the various historical precedents from which we speak, work, and relate today, and ultimately reveal the tenuousness of impact we have on our contexts and the context on us.

Supported by Kunststiftung NRW and Heidehof Stiftung

Image: Caroline Pekle in her garden. Photo: Caroline Pekle

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Group photo of the New Patrons of Friedland with Mariana Castillo Deball in the garden

Four years after the start of the project, the construction of three accessible steel sculptures has begun in the city of Mönchengladbach, providing access to the inner-city garden of the Mönchengladbach Unemployment Centre. Supplemented by a pavilion with an outdoor kitchen, a garden with bridges by Ruth Buchanan is being created here, which aims to create space for gardening, meeting and recreation. The sculptures are named after parts of the body and thus refer to the meaning of the garden as an organism.

Within the framework of a mediation process of the New Patrons Initiative, the team and visitors of the Mönchengladbach Unemployment Centre and pupils and teachers of the nearby Stiftisches Humanistisches Gymnasium Mönchengladbach took the initiative for a joint project that was to…

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On the weekend of 10 & 11 September, the premiere of "In C - Marler Partitur" by Sasha Waltz will take place in Marl.
With this piece by the internationally renowned artist, Marl will be the setting for a unique experiment in which an entire city is involved in a choreography and thus experiences itself as a community across all borders and barriers.
Over 120 dancers and audience members will form a procession and move in a spiral towards the city centre. The movement begins on Saturday, 10 September at 13:00 at the Scharoun School in Marl Westfalenstraße and ends with a joint performance by all participants, including amateurs as well as dancers from Sasha Waltz & Guests, on Sunday, 11 September at 17:00 at the Forum in Marl. 

For more information on locations, participants and how you can…

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[Translate to English:]

Marl dances: For over two weeks, citizens of Marl had the opportunity to approach the choreography of "In C" based on the composition by Terry Riley in workshops with tutors from the company Sasha Waltz & Guests. Interested audience members were able to see the first results in an open rehearsal before the whole of Marl is invited to dance in September.

Photos: Florian Wagner

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Three members of The New Patrons with Mariana Castillo Deball are sitting around a garden table chatting

Mariana Castillo Deball will develop a work for Friedland. The starting point will be the hiking trails and the treasures of the villages that the clients of Friedland have already collected. The first visits and walks have already taken place.

The artist explores ideologically constructed conditions under which artefacts appear in today's culture. To do this, she gathers information from various disciplines such as archaeology and science. Through research and collaboration, she creates works that emerge from the collision and recombination of these different languages.

Mariana Castillo Deball lives and works in Berlin and Mexico City. Her work has been shown at MUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City, 2021), Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (Siegen, 2021), Modern Art…

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The orange-coloured Züsedom-Bank (bench of Züsedom) stands on a field

With Jakub Szczęsny, the people of Züsedom developed a bench which, in bright signal orange, places unmissable meeting points in the village landscape, can be used by every age group and, in its design, also offers the younger generation an opportunity to meet. The Züsedom bench. 

On 22 and 23 July, four charity auctions will be held at Broellin Castle to finance the new village benches in Züsedom.
More than 150 objects from the former Erich Kühl secondary school and the stock of the Züsedom countrywomen will be put up for auction.
Bid for a piece of history and support the production of our Züsedom commission!

Visit the auction website here: auktion.neueauftraggeber.de

Auction 1 : Friday 22 July 2022 15:30:00 - DDR teaching aids (focus on technology & audio)
Auction 2 : Friday 22…

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A member of The New Patrons is cycling around the village

From 14 to 29 May, the new patrons of Steinhöfel told stories, designed, planned and built. Together with Constructlab, the Kistenflitzer was created - a mobile meeting point that is now available to the twelve villages of the community as a mobile cinema, rolling cocktail bar, church on wheels and much more.

A project within the framework of pilot funding by the Federal Cultural Foundation. The realisation is supported by the Fonds Soziokultur, the Fondation de France and the Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam.

Photo: Victoria Tomaschko

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Artist Simon Denny under an umbrella

The question of how technological developments influence our everyday and community life has occupied Simon Denny (*1982, Auckland, New Zealand) for many years. For the New Patrons of Beeskow, he is designing a sculpture series that makes information accessible and visible in the public space and at the same time promotes the community of citizens in this very space and beyond. 

Themes of personal identity and integrity are addressed, as are social debates about data protection and the use of human experience as a raw material.

Photo: Simon Denny visiting Beeskow Photo: Victoria Tomaschko

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A member of the New Patrons of Cameroun is sitting on the ground between green branches

It took a few years - but in March, the first project of the New Patrons on the African continent was inaugurated in Cameroon! It all started in 2014, together with the Goethe-Institut Cameroon. The Baka pygmy community in the country's southern rainforest had declared their urgent desire to deal with the fundamental changes in their culture and way of life, and they took the initiative and commissioned a cultural project, which mediator Germain Loumpet has been accompanying and mediating with great patience and passion ever since.

More info on the project can be found here, among other places: www.goethe.de/ins/cm/de/ueb/prn/lbaka.html

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Thursday, 18.11.2021, 2–5pm (in German)

An online event for planners and decisionmakers at the municipal and state levels and everyone interested in civic participation and decision-making processes.

We want to exchange ideas with you about how the New Patrons model offers unconventional insights into community processes and guidance on how to address even complex issues without intimidating would-be local activists. We throw open the door to our workshop and look forward to learning about your perspectives on and suggestions for what we do. We hope to launch a dialogue on how we can engage people in new conversations and on the key role that culture and art play for an innovative practice grappling with societal concerns.

What?
We introduce you to a unique approach to civic…

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Detail of a picture, the hands of two people painting with brushes on asphalt

Saturday, 4.9.2021, beginning: 2 pm

Presentation of the artistic concept to the public with welcome addresses from Dr. Reinhard Kubat, District Administrator of Waldeck-Frankenberg and Ljubica Nikolic, University of Göttingen.

Meeting place: Dorfgemeinschaftshaus (Village community center), Torweg 8, 35110 Ellershausen, coordinates: 51°04'46.9"N 8°53'34.9"E

The unusual art project commissioned by the Waldeck-Frankenberg Water Initiative makes visible the threat to water as a resource and commits the people of the region in a movement to protect water as the source of all life.

The citizen-commissioners and the artists will present their initiative to the public together. In a subsequent performance, exemplary first marks will be set, whose signal effect gives expression to the fleeting…

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