A HAPPY HOUSE OF JUSTICE AND LOVE

Bonner Kunstverein, 2009

With the participation of: Dustin Böff, Dorothee Büllow, Hidir Celik, Maria Dahmen, Angelika Dusny, Ingeborg Fehrenz, Michael Heveling-Fischell, Bronia Fischer, Bernd Jacobs, Markus Koch, Edith Kramer, Walter Künas, Fine Kürten, Frank Meißner, Margarete Mertens, Büsra Öz, Michelle Reichert, Danielle Reichert, Rene Riegel, Roman Rosenblatt, Dieter Röttgen, Alexander San Roman, Diego San Roman, Wilhelm Schmidt, Heinz Schmitz, Marija Spelic, Manfred Steinbrücker, Siemone Sommerfeld, Marica Teci, Gian L. Todaro, Helene Wahl, Dirk Wiertelarz, Celine Willems.

A collaborative endeavour bringing together residents and protégés of the Blumenhof Social Residence, Evangelical Migration and Refugee Work as well as the Caritas establishments “Uns Huus” (youth center), “Marienhaus” (nursing home) and “Prälat-Schleich-Haus” (home for the homeless) in order to create together artworks and interventions and thereby tackle relevant community issues in situ.

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City residential areas inhabited to any large extent by members of socially at-risk and disadvantaged groups are often characterized by a notable lack of beauty, social potential and, likewise, identity. The Bonner Kunstverein in Bonn is located in just such an area. When I was invited by Bonner Kunstverein to develop a community-based project, I decided to use the theme of architecture and community living and work in situ with several vulnerable social groups of different ages. My wish was to continue the way I had worked with communities before, but also to refer to a part of the history of Bonner Kunstverein, which is closely related to the notion of social sculpture (Soziale Plastik). As a student, while researching into the art of Joseph Beuys, I came across the work of the Artist Placement Group (APG), whose strategy fascinated me. The more I became involved in socially engaged art, the more I appreciated their agenda. In 1977 APG commenced a series of platform exchanges with German government officials, taking place at Bonner Kunstverein. This led to the first international exchange of artists with members of the government, known as artist-with-government placement.

In working on my Bonn project, I tried to encourage the circulation of people between a cultural institution (the Bonner Kunstverein) and several social welfare institutions. The project comprises a large-format outdoor mural intervention, a documentary exhibition in the exhibition hall of the Kunstverein, as well as four small-scale exhibitions in participating institutions. All the exhibited artworks were created implementing participation strategies. The objective was to integrate and link not only the project’s individual participants and protagonists but also art in public space and the neighborhood. We took into consideration the beauty and social responsibility of architecture and communal housing and residency, as well as the integrative potential of art and sensitization of all members of society to cultural participation. During the course of the project, a five-week workshop was organized at Bonner Kunstverein and the social institutions involved. Drawings, photographs, videos and texts were created in collaboration with the participants. Several artworks were found in the process (found artworks made by non-artists, similar to objet trouvé) and later included in the show at Bonner Kunstverein.

Besides the mentioned artworks and artifacts, the exhibition also included four large-format blackboards with text-collages handwritten in chalk that captured various life stories of project participants, people from the neighborhood. These simple yet subtle narratives were transposed into artifacts capable of generating cultural and social identification and self-reflection, as in my other projects (for example Missing Monuments, Volkertviertel, Amerika). This project thus simultaneously documented and strove to improve social reality. The local newspaper wrote extensive about the exhibition and related communal issues while referring to the exhibition as an ‘activist social reportage’.