ENALA European Network for Applied Landart

Transcription

1 1 st international Conference of ENALA, 7 9 th of June 2012, For the starting conference of ENALA we used the opportunity to share our existing experiences and opinions about land art in rural regions and in a second part to discuss possible future forms of land art with invited professionals of regional planning, landscape architecture and art. Konrad Fuchs the major of Hansestadt Gardelegen was welcoming the guests in Zichtau. Christa Ringkamp, Landscape architect and chairman of the garden academy Saxony Anhalt was describing the development of Gut Zichtau and the foundation of the garden academy. Marcel Heins introduced the EU Culture Project ENALA and opened the conference.

2 Divers perspectives in one project! // Presentations and speeches Very interesting is the fact that all 3 project partners of ENALA have very different backgrounds and perspectives on land art and still have a common understanding why applied land art is important. Helmer Wieringa lives and works in the partner region Het Groene Woud, which is a very arable land for vegetable growing. When he was talking about the development of his personal mind set he made a very important comment: Land or landscape is framing the individual as well as the collective belief system. But what if the visual and emotional connection with land is changing? That brings us to Land Art. His personal motivation and research direction is to link agriculture with communities again, to create new uses and new jobs and moreover there is a need to link rural and urban areas again. Robert Manchin is a social scientist and is the Chairman and Managing Director of Gallup Europe and has been conducting empirical social research for the last 40 years, initially as a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and in the last 20 years at Gallup in the USA and in Europe. He tries to see what people think about future. We reach an age where people are searching for a meaningful life meaningful jobs. A majority loose not only the security of present, but a core feature of human existence hope. Youth unemployment already threatens the sustainability of social system and not only our ecosystem is vulnerable. Art or Applied Land Art? Support hope! He described the situation of the island Cres in Croatia and the work of Europa Nova Foundation. The costal lines of Cres are full of tourists and that is the only income for people and the inner island is getting empty. The work of the Europa Nova Foundation is trying to link the cultural landscape values with new uses, new meanings and jobs. In this sense he presented Kruno Vrgoč, member of the Croatian association of visual artists in Rijeka. According to Kruno Vrgoč sculptural works and in terms of dealing with landscape in an artistically way he pointed out the work with locality. This includes in his Mediterranean working environment local materials but also strong wind and special aromatic plants. In this sense he is talking about soundscapes. It is an interesting input to think and work with the scent and sounds of landscapes and to make people aware of these qualities. Marcel Heins from the Anhalt University of Applied sciences is working in Bernburg but his heart belongs to his home region Altmark the third pilot region of the project. He is regularly in this region and he added another viewpoint on art and rural areas. Two things, many people are just crying that there is no cultural activity, which it is boring on the other hand there are old traditions which to his mind somehow stopped their development. No new traditions came up the last centuries and this could be one reason why less people take care of them. Land art can help to open up people s mind, to start new activities as a community and maybe create new traditions. To have culture, people have to start it on their own, they have to be active. Land art and in this sense applied land involves people at their place. How to involve people with different methods to contribute to vital landscapes, that was Jörn Freyers part, coordinator of international projects at the Land Company Saxony Anhalt in Magdeburg in Germany. He gave us an insight view of an international running project VITAL LANDSCAPES with partners from Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. He presented us the idea of educating landscape guides, implementing landscape dialogues, landscape visualization workshops of students and an example of a kids workshop. This project contributes to preserve the quality, diversity and beauty of cultural landscapes in Central Europe. Therefore they test innovative participation and visualization techniques in order to introduce cross sectoral development strategies for selected regions. Livable active rural regions need active people who are in a network. This is especially at the beginning not really easy. Anne Marie Guignard Kessler and Peter Warlich, both chairman of the association Altmärkisches Aufbauwerk Apenburg e.v are those voluntarily active people and they shared their experiences of networking in the Altmark. Euro Land Art Altmark or the Ökomenta are examples of their supported cultural activities for the Altmark. Another example where networking was very important for a new business which linked landscape and tourism was the idea of horse caravanning through the Altmark which can only work if several families offer overnight resting places for the tourists and their wagons and horses. It works! Land Art was a contribution to a growing network of active people.

3 MORE INFORMATION: Euro Land Art // garage rural.e Helmer Wieringa Management Euro Land Art, NL Management ENALA Het Groene Woud Vital Landscapes landscapes.eu Dipl. Geogr. Jörn Freyer Coordinator international projects Gr. Diesdorfer Str. 56/57 D Magdeburg freyer.j@lgsa.de New forms of land art? // Workshops On that day there were to very different workshop with the aim to start thinking and discussing possibilities which are outside the known frame of land art we heard about before. PacMan goes LandKunst New Media and Information Technologies for Art and Culture in Rural and Cultural Landscapes. What if you walk through the landscape and you see through your glasses. This will be smart glasses, where colors and forms and elements of the reality can digitally change by yourself or by your location in the space. You could walk through a village and suddenly the sky is pink and the wind miles at the horizon start a colorful concert. You walk ahead; choose a guided tour on your smart phone and a nice voice is guiding you through the landscape where you will see art elements coming and going how is this? Ok this is still future music but the technology ideas can be possible soon e.g. a person is walking through the landscape, on a digital guided tour and on special points the person takes the smart phone, holding it on a special element and then something on your digital picture will change. This is possible with the help of GPS data and is called Augmented Reality. At the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences is currently a research project about augmented reality. The main question is what if we introduce new media for art questions and could we test it during the ENALA project at one of the land art weeks?

4 This idea provokes a discussion what it is and for what it could be useful. To show things from past, to get information they consider it as suitable. It could motivate people going into the landscape by e.g. following digital guided tours or to see how an art peace developed by seeing the process. Some of the group are unsure whether it could be a new art possibility. All agreed on the idea using it as a tool. The critical point is the view on getting real experiences. The group has doubts whether it can really touch your senses and creates feelings. Garage Rural is an expression for a special working model which combines art, science and community and has its origin in the Dutch region Het Groene Woud which is currently testing it. In this sense the community gives a frame, a question or direction, a place to science and art where they like to Garage Rural meets Natural Gardens Linking land art with community building and also local horticulture in vegetable growing. have a solution. Art and science can help to bring the ideas of a community in a form. In the sense of linking art to community that means art is for the community and has to come in limited sense out of it. The group was unsure what happens in this way with art? Is the artist still free if he is linked with the community? The point is, that every land has different issues and that s why the community has to give a frame for art, because they have knowledge of their land. A good result is always linked with the acceptance in the community and it is important to support the communication under each other. According to this, the garage rural working model and its working process is based on artistic, scientific and community knowledge and all disciplines are open to learn together and to learn from each other. Land art Land art has to be linked with other disciplines art theory, rural theory, scientific theory education is not the only way link heritage with modern questions to communicate values it s a possibility for self reflection to give back the proud to the communities economic sense is important to bring a focus on a region for the inhabitants and for the visitors How to work together? Art and land a good link to community building Community vs. artist???? the artist and the farmer have to talk about the art Uses the knowledge of: art, science and community Art can bring the idea of the community in a form Communication is very important for acceptance Learn together and from each other // coaching not teaching Art can change the view of art Community Work with community building The art is for the community the art has to come from the community in a limited sense? Art is free?! The community has to give the direction define the frame of art Every land has different issues Offer the place for art

5 Excursion Apenburg // Seethen // Lindstedt On Friday the 8 th of June 2012 all participants had the opportunity to get to know some focal points of the network of the Altmark region. Anne Marie Guignard Kessler and Peter Warlich invited us to the organic cattle farm where Peter Warlich is working. This cattle farm belongs to the family von der Schulenburg. We heard about the development of the farm and different very interesting entrepreneurs like the Apenburger Landbäckerei the fisrt organic bakery in Saxony Anhalt. Moreover we visited Stan Pete, the Euro Land Art artist 2012 who was preparing his artwork Der Palettenwald near the farm and we did a little sightseeing through the village Apenburg. We were hosted and guided very warmly and we like to say thank you again! In the afternoon we were in Seethen at the garden of the family of Marcel Heins. The Mühlengarten participates at the open gardens Altmark where you have the possibility to visit special private gardens of the Altmark. In the afternoon we did a walk through the landscape from Seetheh to Lindstedt, the place for the first Land Art Week of ENALA in August Euro Land Art On Saturday the 09 th of June 2012 was the public opening of Euro Land Art Altmark. Guests of the conference had the possibility to visit the artwork of the Dutch artist Simon Kentgens and his video installation "A gut feeling - Ein Gut'es Gefühl".

6 Attachments: Workshop 1 PacMan goes LandKunst New Media and Information Technologies for Art and Culture in Rural and Cultural Landscapes.

7 Workshop 2 Garage Rural meets Natural Gardens Linking land art with community building and also local horticulture in vegetable growing.