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

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.

© Mehmet Birinci

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!

Well, hello people it’s Tuncay (Munich WTD-Team)

I just wanted to say hello to you about “What’s the deal?” and of course tell you a story. In Munich we formed the local team and are just working on the plans of our Nomadic Sculpture as you can see. “We” are: Matt, Kilian, Philip, Mixen, Kiesi, Raphaela, Marlen and Marcus. But there are also a few other guys who support us. Well what do we mean with a Nomadic Sculpture?

Tananaaaaaaaa – here is the answer:

Nomadic Sculpture:
A transportable, but not “branded”, skateable sculpture made out of recycled material.

To dispose a mobile and skateable scuplture in open space, we will pick out  5 spots in different locations in Munich.  To choose the right spots, certain facts like size, location, and the “potential of being a spot” through the eyes of skaters are basic elements. The object is going to be called “Nomadic Sculpture” and will be assembled at the implied spots. The whole process will begin in spring 2014. The sculpture will change its location monthly including 4 days of installation/dismantling. By selecting the materials, we will put our focus on recycled and used materials. The sculpture is not a fixed huge komplex structure, but more likely consisting out of many singular modules which can be combined with each other. An overseas container is the important part of the project. We will be able to store the modules and all our necessities in it while they are not used. On the other half the container will serve as a eventspace during the active project phases.

Ideally, the nomadic sculpture will overwinter in an open space, where skaters can use it as a temporary alternative to a public skate hall. At the moment we are in contact with the Darwin Project in Bordeaux which is interested to act as a host for our sculpture during the winter. In 2015 (May or June), the Nomadic Sculpture is going to be a component of the final event of the project which is planned to be placed in the designated “creative quarter”.

Throughout the tour within the city, the sculpture will be developed further and further and customized to its environment.

On our first stage – Max-Josephs-Platz in the city center in Munich (April 2014) we will simply arrange an information- and an enquiry desk. All stations will be supplied with a stand-up display in form of a question mark. The question mark is  supposed to be the graphic key-element of the whole project and should serve as a symbol for the project which will appear in a large-sized  manner. The symbol is intended to question the urban spaces – in which we remain in our everyday lives – in its functionality.

In this case the question marks indicate the locations in the sense of an eclectic urban sensation, which can be considered and used differently by every individual (e.g. a step, a stair-rail, a bench etc.). The question, which now will be asked to the pedestrians, is: “Here, a skater would do the following. What would you choose to do with this space? With these collections of answers and ideas we will have numerous possibilities of usage for certain urban areas, which will play a major roll of the entire project in Munich.

So, the work of art is not only the sculpture, but also contains the entire process of the “nomadic hike” through the city, which will be provided by content discourse and an agile cultural framework program. We will try to find a spot for the last location, where the sculpture can stay the whole winter.

In the skate scene logos are omnipresent: the brands court for attention and the sponsor logos are printed onto ramps and skate parks. To break through this labeling, we will paint the skateable sculpture plain white without branding it nor to supply it with fictitious logos. Skate shows, workshops and a cultural framework program will make sure, that the attention of the subject matter of an urban waste land is drawn to a broad public. The mobile artwork will be displayed at a variety of unused public spaces in Munich.

In the first step we are planning the actions on Max-Joseph-Platz. Kilian Gerle, Max Häring, Tuncay Acar and Matt Wiegele figure out the constructions.

Please specify a Flickr ID for this gallery

How to find material for our Nomadic Sculpture according to our philosophy?

We will find it at the trashyards of our hard consuming society! For this we ask fairconstructors etc. who often enough have a lot of material to give away as we could figure it out. We visit fairs and ask people at the stands if they can offer us some parts of their temporary constructions. And of course we visited the ISPO (international main exhibition for sport business) in Munich and were quite surprised.

Please specify a Flickr ID for this gallery

Are brands acting sustainable in the means of reusing stand structures ?
Hey – what do you think? Of course they do!!! First of all we have to say, that many brands who presented themselves already started to fit to our philosophy. Not less stands were built with used material – for example euro palettes and reused chipboards etc.. A lot of the stand workers we asked at least “told” us that they could give us nothing because they reuse all of the material. That sounded surprising but we liked that attitude! (of course we found a lot more usable trash than we could take with our small bus at the end – but that’s another story, hehe).

Please specify a Flickr ID for this gallery

Are brands acting sustainable in the means of business policies?
Another fact which drew our attention was, that ISPO Munich was of course already dealing with the issue of sustainability in many ways. There was a huge area at the fairground which was preserved for two organizations which are working for ISPO to deal with the issue of sustainable production. “Greenroomvoice” is a organization which developed methods of the established textile industry and brings them into the production world of young fashion brands in the urban sports field. Greenroomvoice works on a certificate for sustainable production. “Brands For Good” is – as far we could figure it out working as a consulting company for young brands who want to act sustainable. They care for a effective network and supply them with recent information flow for their work. We talked to Anna Rodewald of Greenroomvoice, who told us that ISPO Munich deals with this issue since 2008. Anna has worked for years in the textile industry and is now working as a independent cunsulter. She organized some of the interesting discussion rounds that were happening at the inspire platform of ISPO.
Also it was quite interesting to see, that a lot of brands – especially skateboard and snowboard producers – acted very responsible in choosing natural production material, reusing old material for give aways, finding new ways of production. One brand from portugal for example accuraged his customers to do it themselves by handing them raw modules of the end product and telling them how to put the parts together. Also we met Max Henninger from “Skate Aid” an organization which builds skateramps for NGO’s allover the world, so kids who normally could never afford it can skate also (www.skate-aid.org).

And so on and so on….

We could have spent hours there but we had to find material for our work. And at the end we could have taken tons of trash wood boards with us. I think we will have no problem at all to find enough material for our Nomadic Sculpture…hehe.

Well here we store some wooden piles from a deconstructed roof which we took from a construction site. Of course we asked politely and the workers helped us with a crane. In return we gave them a box of good bavarian beer.

Please specify a Flickr ID for this gallery