social - mental - environmental, 2007
A production for project space Sparwasser HQ, Berlin organized by Åsa Sonjasdotter, Ulrike Solbrig and Nis Rømer in 2007. Kindly supported by Stiftung Interkultur, München.
A workshop and exhibition for cultural practitioners working with modes of self-empowerment and sustainability, who work with an awareness of how the shaping of livelihoods reflects political, economical and cultural power structures, and who, through engagement in this subject, have developed positions and strategies of criticality within their practice. The workshops were open to any participant, not only those explicitly invited, to share their experiences within the field.
Asking around in the garden scene for left over materials for shaping the atmosphere in the meeting space Sonjasdotter/Rømer/Solbrig were offered some gravestones that they arranged along the dark colored gallery walls together with newspaper stacks of "News from the Fields" from the Norwegian artists Ingrid Book & Carina Hedén an accumulation of different media.
In Ribbeck by the church a pear tree stands... ("Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland"). They wrote an earlier version of the story into the window of the project room. While the famous poem, written with an educational undertone, has it that Ribbeck, intentionally planed, to have a pear placed in his grave the earlier unnoticed version of the poem speaks of a lucky accident that leads to the eventual growing of a pear tree from his grave: Burying him, they forget to empty his pockets of the pears, he used to share with the children of the village. - A mysterious detour in this famous "compost" story.
In Ribbeck, by the church, a pear tree stands,
fanning the church's roof with copious boughs.
Its mighty trunk bears witness to its age,
and grows or so it seems -- out of the wall,
as if from the churchís very core.
There's a story told of this odd tree
– I loved to hear it as a child – about
an old Ribbeckian, who liked to stroll
through town, his bulging pockets stuffed
with pears and apples, which he gave out,
smiling, it must have been a hundred times
– gave with both hands – a gleaming fruit,
to every village child. But when at last,
came time to place the old gent in his coffin
no one thought to check his pockets!
Next spring there sprouted from the churchyard wall,
near his familial grave, a small green stem.
And so this cheerful fellow – who for years
had lit up children's eyes with glistening gifts –
still gives out joy, when autumn comes around,
and the old tree scatters its small pears over
the ground, and children grab them with delight.
Just as the evening shadows lengthen out and deepen
swiftly, when this legend lights my soul! "
1875 by Hertha von Wiedebach, translation Katherine Jackson 2007
Ulrike Solbrig, Germany: Chausseestr. 110-I, 10115 Berlin, tel.: +49 1557 43 5656 3 ulrike@solbrig.de