Nomadic Sculpture

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4. November 2015

Nomadic Sculpture in Berlin and A Petition for DIY Skateparks in Munich

by Hertha Filed under: Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,What's The Deal? generalComments Off

After the WTD festival at the Kreativquartier in Munich, the Nomadic Sculpture was deinstalled for the last time and was moved to Berlin. Why to Berlin? Because that is where Philip Metz, the artist of the skateable sculpture, lives. He is now in charge of the art work and has found a storage place for the modules. They are currently being stored in a warehouse somewhere in the woods around Berlin waiting to be reused again…

While the Nomadic Sculpture is now in Berlin, an unexpected positive outcome of the project “What’s the deal?” has occurred in Munich. Several city councillors issued a petition requesting the city administration to look into the possibility of providing temporary space to create DIY skateparks. This idea was developed during a debate at the WTD festival “moving urban cultures” with representatives from political parties and from the skateboarding scene.

21. May 2015

WTD Exhibition, June 11 – 20, 2015

by Hertha Filed under: Creative Lab,Design,Events,FSPU,Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,Urban biking,What's The Deal? generalComments Off

The „Moving urban cultures“ festival is all about workshops, live-concerts and talks about sustainability and young urban cultures. But there’s something else: in the past two years international artists have created various works for the „What’s the deal?“ project that will be exhibited during the whole festival.

Wandering around the Kreativquartier, without doubt, you will soon reach the „Kreativräume“, were the exhibition is located. Enter Hall 5 and find yourself in the middle of the project „From Space to Place to Utopia”: this project is about urban wasteland in four european cities. The artists’ task was to find an abandoned space and to show the present state through a photography. Then they should create a work about how the space could look in future. Eventually they invented wild utopias of how they wished the spaces be like. The selected cities were Munich (Max-Joseph Platz, Kreativquartier and Viehhof), Ljbuljana (Tobacno), Hallein, Austria (rooftops) and Amsterdam (Stenenhoofd).

Following the exhibition to Hall 6 and 7 you will experience the WTD Lab and the Art Intervention Amsterdam. The WTD Lab is a reflection of artists from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Turkey and Slovenia about sustainabiltiy. Their art work shows alternative solutions about this frequently discussed topic. The Art Intervention Amsterdam is dealing with how designers could change the world. Fourteen european designers engaged themselves in a multi-disciplinary manner with the subject of sustainability at the beginning of this year and will present their far-reaching results in the exhibition.

Leaving the inner area you’ll stumble across a wooden sculpture populated with skaters doing there tricks. The so called Nomadic Sculpture is located opposite of the Import Export Kantine and is once again ready to be skated on. Next to it you’ll find artistic and unique trikes on display which were constructed during the Schmiede Bike Lab, also ready to be tried out. Both art works are excellent examples, how the (sharp) distinction between art and commodity item can become blurred.

For more information about the artists and the work the infocenter is happy to help and provide you with all requested materials. Texts, pictures and videos about the background, research and results of the project are on display.

20. May 2015

Skateboarding, Arts and Culture, June 20 // What’s the deal? – moving urban cultures

by Hertha Filed under: Events,Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,Skateboarding,What's The Deal? generalComments Off

The last day of the festival will be all about skateboarding includig Skatesessions, Skateworkshops and Talks.

One of the highlights will be the inauguration of the Nomadic Sculpture:

The Nomadic Sculpture is an object in public space that was developed in five phases. The aim was to create a sculpture that can serve multiple purposes – an expectation that would be hard to fulfill, especially for an object of art, which per definition is not an object created with the purpose of being used. The Nomadic Sculpture is built of reused material, variable in shape and can therefore adapt to each site which makes it suitable for skateboards.

But that’s not all: watch Videos of D.I.Y. Skatepark-projects in the WTD-Container or participate in a talk about Skateparks in Munich.

If you’re a Skater yourself, show your skills and tricks in a special surrounding during a Night-Skatesession. Or just enjoy a great Live-Concert with Faauna and a DJ Set of Caroline v. Monaco & Prügelprinz Ernst August.

6. May 2015

WTD Final Event program out now

by Hertha Filed under: Design,Events,FSPU,Munich,Mural Art / Street Art,Nomadic Sculpture,Uncategorized,Urban biking,What's The Deal? generalComments Off

Finally we can show you the program of the festival in June, so take a look and prepare yourself for the big event!

Click on the Flyer to the left, to read it in English. The German version is the one to the right.

22. April 2015

FINAL EVENT “what´s the deal? – moving urban cultures”

by Hertha Filed under: Design,Events,Munich,Mural Art / Street Art,Nomadic Sculpture,Urban biking,What's The Deal? generalComments Off

We are getting closer and closer to the date of our final event! From June 11-20, the Kreativquartier in Munich invites you to join the festival “what´s the deal? – moving urban cultures”, the closing event of the WTD project.

Each day will be dedicated to a special topic where a manifold program will be prepared, all dealing with sustainability and urban cultures.

While the Opening Day, June 11, will contain the vernissage of the exhibitions, a skateworkshop and performances, June 12 will offer discussions about reclaiming and using public urban space.

June 13 will be kind of a huge grab bag filled with further thought-provoking talks and presentations, videos and shortmovies, poetry, live concerts and many more.

June 14, on the other hand, will be all about bikes – what kind of creative bycicles are swerving on the surface of our planet beyond the traditional types? How can you repair them? Can the riding of a bike be sport and art at the same time? If you want to find out, this is your day.

The following Friday, June 19, is dedicated to design. A workshop will let you learn about the connection between design and compassion. Designers from various places in Europe will discuss their role as responsible cocreators of commodities and in the evening a fashion perfomance awaits you that brings even food into play. Can you imagine anything better?

Our last day, June 20, will deal with the prominent Munich WTD-theme: the popular subculture of skateboarding. The Nomadic Sculpture will be ready again for the tricks of skateboarders and bikers. Kids can learn in a workshop how to skate on a board, while videos about famous D.i.Y skateparks around the world will be shown in the WTD container. It will be followed by a discussion between representatives of the city and the Munich skateboarder scene on how D.I.Y. skateparks could fit to Munich’s Skateparkcity image.

But no worries, there is no void on days without a program! Except for Monday you can still enjoy many intriguing artworks and installations at our exhibitons. A WTD-infocenter is ready to answer all your questions about the background and results of the WTD project – on screen, on paper and face-to-face. And on top of this bands and DJs like HopStopBanda, Retrogott & HulkHodn and DJ Salsoul with DJ Watusi and Milton Flores will provide you with music almost every evening.

23. March 2015

Finissage at MaximiliansForum

by Hertha Filed under: Events,Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,Project Reports,SkateboardingComments Off

The Finissage of Episode IV: Moving Underground took place on the 10th of January in MaximiliansForum and has been a great success. Many young skaters came and demonstrated their skills on the Nomadic Sculpture. mayer+empl and Genelabo provided some colourful projections, transforming the sculpture into an artful playground with exciting patterns by making them change and shift according to the skater´s movements.

The more experienced ones like Tom Cat showed some of their complex tricks later in the evening.

But not only young adults and grown-ups enjoyed the event. Little soon-to-be skaters joined in and paved the ground for their future careers. In the “Best Trick Contest” they proved that such predictions are in no way untenable pipe dreams and that they´re sure to become the next skate-stars.

Haeppi Piecis showed a diverse selection of innovatively designed items, ranging from lamps and chairs to clothing and accessories. By emphasizing the local oppsed to bulk goods they want to create awareness for sustainablity and alternatives for our accustomed lifestyles.

Music wasn´t absent as well, but of course not in the well-known habitual way. Lisa Simpson challenged the traditional style of performing music by including her sewing machine in a “fashion orchestra”. Through that unusual pairing she became musician and designer at the same time, making people dance and see the creation of a new piece of fashion at once.

If you want to have a brief overview of the whole Period of Episode IV: Moving Underground watch the video below:

moving underground – Nomadic Sculpture Episode IV at MaximiliansForum from What's the deal? on Vimeo.

13. March 2015

What’s the Deal with your clothes? A reflection. By Lisa Simpson

by Hertha Filed under: Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,Project ReportsComments Off

In tune with the EU project What’s the Deal themes of sustainability and young urban cultures I was invited as guest artist to Villa Waldberta to create a collection of upcycled garments. I resided in the Villa for two months. In October,
the sun shined in bright autumn days full of reds, yellows and greens, and it was even warm enough to get my feet in the cold water of Lake Starnberg. I set up my studio in the room just below the tower, with an incredible view of the Alps.

Upon hearing about my upcycling textile project, Matt Wiegele, Munich based artist also part of WTD, volunteered to donate a box full of T-shirts from his now extinct clothing line. They had bought the T-shirts for screen printing but the
garments had been collecting dust in his studio for years now. This was exactly the kind of materials I was looking for: clothing with a history, collected locally, and completely out of use. Matt was thrilled to see his materials would finally be put to use, adding that he had been saving the shirts in hope that one day they would be used creatively again. Perhaps someone not involved in an art and sustainability project would have long thrown them out.

Rummaging through the flea markets, I was inspired by the colours and textures around Villa Waldberta, to collect garments that reflected my surroundings. Back in my studio, I began to cut and stitch together the old and the new – new t-shirts mixed qith antique clothing – in a final collection of 25 garments that aim to illustrate both the atmosphere of the Villa, as well as the recollection of a local history through vintage garments. I spent the month transforming the unwoven , unwanted clothing and piecing them together, repurposing materials and giving them a new shape, just as nature changes shape in each season, from a most prestigious and historical studio place.

October went by as fast as the leaves around me were falling from the trees.

In December I was back to Villa Waldberta. The leaves were long fallen on the ground, the fog was so thick you could barely see the Alps which had seemed so close in October. In the spirit of winter, I spent the month of December focusing in the other aspect of my practice as a seamstress – using the sewing machine as a musical instrument. I connected with Munich based artist Steffi Müller, who is also known around Munich as a musical sewing machine artist. I was ecstatic to meet her, for in all my travels I have yet to meet someone with similar musical sewing ideas. We rehearsed to perform a sewing machine duet together at the end of December. Meanwhile, I fnally got around to visiting many of Munich´s extended list of museums, soaking in the Blaue Reiter, the New Objectivity, imagining myself walking the same streets that Franz Marc once walked. This two months residency was as much about what I put out in production as what I took in as experience and inspiritaion.

In January I came one more time to Munich for the finissage event of What´s the Deal Nomadic Sculpture exhibition “Episode IV: Going Underground” at MaximiliansForum. Though no longer a resident of Villa Waldberta, I was invited to present a musical sewing performance, accompanied by musician Tona Ruiz. Through rhythmic patterns and beats, I sewed a dress from 5 of Matt´s T-shirts, a live example of the work I had been developing throughout the two month residency. I am thankful for the support from all the WTD team!

10. December 2014

Finissage – The Nomadic Sculpture goes hibernating

by Hertha Filed under: Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,SkateboardingComments Off

It will have been seven weeks that the Nomadic sculpture has stayed in the underground art space MaximiliansForum, when the finissage on Saturday, January 10, 2015 will end the fourth episode.

The opening event had been a great success with lots of people attending the programme of the vernissage. Skaters had started right from the beginning to test the sculpture on its skateability while other visitors looked at all the products and art work displayed at the concept design store “Going Local”. All products (they were also for sale) were selected by Anne and Alexandra (together they provide the platform Haeppi Piecis for local designers) based on their link to sustainability.

Art work produced by the WTD Creative Lab taking place at the Villa Waldberta completed the exhibition.

(for more info check www.whatsthedeal.eu/blog/?p=698)

Lisa Simpson showed some of her upcycled clothes made of used material from the flea markets or from leftover stocks and artfully combined together to create to collections. Onur Ceritoglu created the bird watch chair, made of easily available wood. He also assembled all the shelves for the concept store out of material found at the MaximiliansForum: again leftovers from former events. The collective GUMB – already back in Ljubljana – left their freshly-made lamps of natural material and paper behind to be presented in the venue. Interactive projections on the skateable sculpture, an info point with information material, videos and pictures explaining WTD and the Nomadic Sculpture as well as a live act from Roger Rekless and DJ music made the event diverse and entertaining.

Here are some pics to give a feeling of the atmosphere:

D_16_klein

Many more photos can be found at flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/whats-the-deal/sets/72157649050168509

The second event took place on December 6 (Santa Claus). This time the group “The Open Door” provided the content for an exhibition related to skateboarding and formed the program. The Open Door is a collective of creatives located in Munich with a strong link to skateboarding which organises temporary exhbitions of photography, illustration, art and fashion from time to time in order to illustrate its vision of skateboarding as culture. This time, work of Roberto Cuellar, Almaros, Laura Kaczmarek Photography, Leo Preisinger Fotografie, Conny Mirbach, Carl Wander, Holiday Life Co., SHRN and Wiethaus Michael were presented.

While the program of the finissage has already been defined and announced, the art space MaximiliansForum will still be open until then on regular opening hours and will provide the skateboarders the unique chance to skate the Nomadic Sculpture. So far, the skating community has embraced this as an attractive opportunity, as places for skating during winter time are few to none in Munich.

And here is the planned program for the finissage:

16:00 – 23:00
Haeppi Piecis Design Concept Store is open to the public to see and buy

16:00 – 16:30
Best Trick Contest of the junior skaters with prizes

16:30 – 19:30
Assisted by Skateboarding München e.V. the skater community will get the opportunity to test the functionality of our ‘Nomadic Sculpture’ for the last time at the MaximiliansForum. Their performances will be surrounded by an interactive projection mapping on the sculpture by Genelabo and mayer+empl.

19:30 – 20:00
WTD Skatedemo with Tobi Albertross and friends

20:30
Fashion Orchestra. A Live performance combining sewing machine, sewing and music by Lisa Simpson

Afterwards:
DJ Walter Wolff will guide the transition of the finissage from exhibition to party.

Have a look at the full program (in German) :

WTD – Program Finissage Episode IV

25. November 2014

The Open Door meets the Nomadic Sculpture at MaximiliansForum

by Hertha Filed under: Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,SkateboardingComments Off

Just two weeks after the very successful and pleasant vernissage of “Nomadic Sculpture – Episode IV: Moving underground” the next event is already in the pipeline. The Munich based creative collective “The Open Door” will organise an exhibition at the MaximiliansForum as part of Episode IV on Saturday, December 6. The Open Door will showcase the work of artists coming from or linked strongly to the skateboarding scene. The artists to be featured at the Maximiliansforum will be: Roberto Cuellar, Almaros, Laura Kaczmarek Photography, Leo Preisinger Fotografie, Conny Mirbach, Carl Wander, Holiday Life Co, SHRN and Michael Wiethaus.

Apart from the exhibition the skaters will also get the opportunity to skate the Nomadic Sculpture which will be illuminated by interactive projections particularly developed for this occasion by Genelabo and mayer+empl. The musical entertainment will be provided by Monaco Bass and the “Going local” design concept store of the creative platform Haeppi Piecis will present again both local sustainable products as well as the art works of the international artists Lisa Simpson, the collective GUMB, Onur Certigolu and Mac Krebernik.

Have a look at the full program (in German): WTD-The-Open-Door

There are more events lined up within Episode IV: skate sessions, a lab to experiment with the sculpture for the skating community and a finissage on January 10. Once, all pics and videos taken have been screened, they will be posted in one of the next blogs.

6. November 2014

The “Nomadic Sculpture” goes into the fourth round – Episode IV: Moving Underground

by Hertha Filed under: Munich,Nomadic Sculpture,SkateboardingComments Off

And it’s about time to provide more news about this upcoming event, the fourth one where the Nomadic Sculpture moves around the city to the selected urban spots. As announced in the last blog entry about the Nomadic sculpture – www.whatsthedeal.eu/blog/?p=756 – the Nomadic Sculpture will move underground to the MaximiliansForum, an art space in a pedestrian sub-passage in Munich, and adapt to this environment in a new shape. The sculpture will stay at that venue from Saturday, 22.11.14 to Saturday, 10.01.15 – 7 long weeks.
During that time period, the art space will be open to the public, but in particular to the skateboarders who will be allowed to skate the Nomadic Sculpture. The WTD team thinks that this will be particularly attractive for them, as places for skating during winter time are few to none in Munich. Another highlight will be interactive projections on the artistic sculpture.

An impression of the venue MaximiliansForum:

And this is an example what the projection could look like:

And there will be even more to see at MaximiliansForum during Episode IV: Moving Underground. This time the Nomadic Sculpture has teamed up with Haeppi Piecis Design Concept Store where local and international products will be shown and – hopefully – sold. The slogan is: Think global, act local! The store will not only show sustainable products from local designers, but also present the artwork related to sustainability by the international guest artists from Villa Waldberta, the international artist-in-residence house of the City of Munich.(more info about the artists: whatsthedeal.eu/blog/?p=698).

The event will start with an opening on September 22. This is the planned program:

16:00 – 19:00

Assisted by Skateboarding München e.V. the skater community will get the big opportunity to test the functionality of our ‘Nomadic Sculpture’ and to show its special skills! Their performances will be surrounded by an interactive projection mapping on the sculpture by Gene (Doublevisions) and mayer+empl to the background music played by Dj Larry Frenoga (Jazz-Funk-Soul-Gala).

19:00

The official opening of the event will take place. The very unique Design Concept Store : ‘Going local’ will be presented which offers not only fashion and accessories but also delicacies and interior decorationproduced sustainably in and around Munich. On top of that the artistical work of the young artists Lisa Simpson (São Paulo), Onur Ceritoğlu (Istanbul) und Collective GUMB (Ljubljana) created during their stay at Villa Walberta, the international artist residence of the City of Munich will be presented.

20:00

A live rap performance by the rather well-known Roger Rekless will inspire the audience.

21:00

Fantastic DJ performances managed by Dj ’Larry Frenoga’ (Jazz-Funk-Soul-Gala) will round off the Vernissage.

Have a look at the full program (in German) :

Flyer Nomadic Sculpture - Episode IV

And there will be more events during the weeks after the opening. The next one is planned for November 6 at the MaximiliansForum: The Open-Door-Exhibition. But this is another story. Watch out for the next blog on the Nomadic Sculpture.

"What's the deal?" – A Transnational Project on Young Urban Cultures …

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4. November 2015