Research in Prishtina and South Africa - A long-term Project from July 2021 to March 2023
“Path Finding Travel” is a multi-level research & tour action. It is essentially the framework project for all further projects in the project period. It gives me the basis for my regional actions.
It's about the search and implementation of sustainable tour & performance concepts: project-ethical principles are: a minimalist life & tour style, travel is without flying and with the least possible pollution and to artistically use only what is available.
I travel overland because I believe that this is the only way tours and artistic residencies should have a right to exist. For me, this is the most original form of travel, with which one can actually experience space and time and at the same time establish a relationship with the places traveled through. Only in this way can space and time actually be experienced. This is also related to my sustainability research.
Due to the worldwide Covid measures, I was unfortunately unable to make the journey by land and sea planned for October to December 2021. So at the end of January 2022 I took a flight from Istanbul to Cape Town. The three-month return journey by bus, train and sailing ship is planned for January 2023.
Project stations are:
Prishtina, Kosovo from July to September 2021
Istanbul, Turkey from October to January 2022
A research performance, sustainability action in Cape Town, South Africa (from February 2022 to January 2023) with several weeks of research on war/colonialism history in Namibia. Return journey by bus/train and from Cape Town back to Germany (January to March 2022)
in Cape Town from January to September 2022
Why is?
Motivated by the journey into my own post-war role as a German citizen, I go to places that have recently emerged from war situations. I go to these places to locate myself, to feel my own history and to connect with the history of these previously foreign places. I would like to work and be active there, locate myself and provide impetus for the development of society.
Project stations so far
It first went to Prishtina to research how “public” spaces presented themselves ecologically/economically/politically in the post-war period.
After that, my work took me to South Africa to locate myself there for the social atmosphere/tension - precisely because of the overcome apartheid.
Luggage / objects in public space as an instrument
My travel luggage consists of a rucksack with travel utensils and a few artistic aids for use in rooms. By using local materials such as leaves, wood and metal from e.g. construction sites or possibly also from markets... I get into an artistic exchange with the place and the people there.
A basic material that has occupied me in its ambivalence since my artist residency in Istanbul is plastic. Also during the trip I will act with collected plastic, previously discarded by society. Plastic will be a guide to the travel performances. New sound "sculptures" are created for every performance/interaction on the go.
The global situation in the Covid pandemic is another topic that I am addressing with my campaign. My performances will address the needs of the pandemic.
During the journey, I to deal with the interface and the concept of "non-places" based on the book of the same name by ethnologist Marc Augé. Augé uses "non-places" to describe transit places where there is no developed social history and personal identification. These are places of modern public space, such as large traffic routes, parking lots and supermarkets. As a traveler on the way from Prishtina to South Africa, I stop at these non-places, among other things. My trip from Prishtina to South Africa takes place in these non-places places.
With my spatial performances, I go into the socio-economic processes and into cultural and social life. The rooms used undergo a reinterpretation - the room becomes a (musical) instrument - its properties as a sound object are examined. When utilizing rooms, I negotiate their usage properties and question how rooms are assigned these. Due to the corona virus and the ongoing digitization, cities and our living spaces will continue to change - I would also like to refer to this development.
In addition, I would like to discover/examine the public space in the urban and rural environment as performative places. For example, I am building on my projects in public space during my residency in Istanbul (from October 2020 to March 2021) and research in Berlin in May 2021:
With the performance & video project "Sounds of Corona" I went to public places in Istanbul during lockdown and played them with sound & movement actions.
In Berlin I researched / was interested in completely dispensing with the tools I brought with me to produce sounds and only using things that are already in public space. These are public objects, garbage, plants, substrates such as sand, stone and concrete. The sound and movement backdrop from car traffic and pedestrians and the climatic conditions are also important.
Further contents of the research
In addition to the tonal-somatic level of the spaces, my artistic research also deals with the negotiation of behavioral patterns in open and closed spaces, in private and public spaces.
An intensive artistic examination/occupation is often preceded by an in-depth research, getting to know each other and communication phase. Because intensive engagement with the spaces also requires getting to know and trusting the people who enliven, inhabit, shape, care for and own these places.