"Artistic processes, and regional culture and media initiative projects are examining identity constructs and submitting "regional history" to new readings. They are lending visibility to the exclusions on which homogenized social and societal space is based, chipping away at the "erratic blocks" of standardized "convictions and behavioural patterns in and for space."[1]

In many places, the identity-providing function of such environments for society and culture is utilized. Interventions in towns, the reflection and penetration of their atmosphere, the creation of a specific local ambiance via  arts(without exploiting the arts at the same time) need professional esthetical competence.

Originating from the department space of the Institute of Fine Arts and lead by a project team consisting of members from various institutes from the faculty of Cultural Sciences and Esthetical Communication, students have been working in the area of Heinde since October 2006 under the title LandArbeit. Together with the inhabitants, they implement artistic projects on-site and show, that the university takes its artistic responsibility in the area of Hildesheim seriously and that its projects can reach far beyond the surrounding region.


1. Spatial work

LandArbeit is an art project in public space and contributes to a debate, which curls around the definition of publicity, the political responsibilities of art within the framework of the evolutionizing  society and the changes of environment in the course of political und economical coherences.

Its concept is based on new and critical concepts of relational spatial conception, in which environment itself is not given, but is formed by interaction of spatial objects or human action. These definitions of space are in opposition to scientifically orientated „container-conceptions“, which still form the basis of many sculptural works.

The relational spatial conception proceeds from the assumption that co-existences in space and time are subject to constant change. Locality-orientated art based on this type of concept is anchored to the social field as an expansion of the physical local identity. Also the work of art is not created in a neutral environment „for eternity“, but takes up a certain situation at a certain time at a certain location. It is there to create a lasting effect for the people involved - and then to disappear.

LandArbeit is designed on the basis of  understanding art and based on the expansion of the artistic (production) methadology, an intensification of audience involvement, an open concept of work and an enhanced understanding of material, which not only involves autonomous objects bound to material, but also concrete everyday actions, intangibles, reactions and the development of participants in an artistic context. The artistic focus is shifted from the occupation with objects to „an occupation with subjects and their enablement to participate in artistic activities“. [2].

The invited artists and the students of Cultural Sciences actively deal with the project space in a social context and involve the existent cultural and social system at the particular location in the planning and implementation of their works of art. Nothing has been produced in advance, all ideas have been individually developed for the region of Heinde.

The special feature of the project: The inhabitants of Heinde become members of the team and co-producers of communicative processes of work, through which relations to and respectively between the subjects are established. In this concept, all participants are involved in the production and are led to concrete actions with the power to change the surrounding space.

During the month, the collaborative and social action will form a Social Sculpture as with Joseph Beuys,  wanting to develop creative potentials within differing personal and regional possibilities and will change the project space, visibly and invisibly.


2. "Visiting Heinde"
Cooperation and Communication

Communication between all participants of LandArbeit is most important for a mutual understanding and success. LandArbeit emphasizes the active incorporation of the local participants and the direct communication between the project contributors and their helpers on-site. The forms of communication, the meetings, partnerships etc. will be structured and supervised by LandArbeit.

In addition to the cooperation of the different institutes within the university, which take into account the central idea of multidisciplinary learning, LandArbeit cooperates with the townships, 13 associations, the Protestant parish of Heinde-Listringen und dem Netzwerk Kultur und Heimat Börde & Leinetal e.V. 

At the interface between art and everyday life, the projects of LandArbeit integrate the inhabitants of Heinde into their discussions of social and artistic questioning. On the other hand LandArbeit is involved in the cultural life of the townships:
For weeks, several institutions, (e.g.the kindergarten, the school, the brass band, the rifle club, the parochial church council and the local choir) have been organizing a collective festival. This festival not only celebrates the communicative and artistic results of the art projects, but also the 800th anniversary of the parish and the wedding anniversary of Freiherr vom Stein, who was married in the Heinde church. Performances by the associations, presentations of the works of art in guided tours, the re-enactment of Freiherr vom Stein‘s wedding and many other events will be combined during the festival week of LandArbeit.

This conjunction event shows the conceptional range of the project: The regional standing, self-expression and -discovery in the cultural action (cultural performance) on the one hand, its reflection and constructive irritation via an artistic intervention on the other hand.

The self-presentation  emphasizes the host-status of the inhabitants. The artists invited are integrated as guests into a rich environment of cultural tradition and practice. This relationship between guest and host allows a mutual exchange of views. Both sides enter an inspiring and refining dialogue in terms of cultural showmanship.

The contributions of the artists invited highlight an external view, an antipole to the image-cultivation articulated in the regional festivities. They provide a discursive area of tension touching upon cultural identity, home and the organisation of the material and mental space. The fine arts as a medium exhibit the necessary durability and  freedom from credit to provoke the desired gestures of thought and communication.


3. "Art in the country?"
A village as an area of production

LandArbeit is an art project in a rural area. Centre of the project is the village Heinde, situated 5 kilometres to the south-east of Hildesheim. The village lies in the close vicinity of the Domäne Marienburg, the location of the Institute for Fine Arts.

Even if the biassed attitude, that contemporary art has to take place in urban centres  (here a liberal-minded, cosmopolitan impulse, there an antiquated provincialism) was revised in the course of the globalisation debate, it is still a common conception. Where precisely can the border between central and peripheral be drawn? Who decides which part of artistic work is cosmopolitan or which is provincially peripheral?

Far from these urban centres, the project combines cultural work and contemporary forms of art with local history, problems and peculiarities making use of the specific quality of local publicity, the spatial proximity, as an artistic potential.

Compared to other European countries, Germany has a very dense network of art associations and initiatives. In the past, small townships like for example Lingen, Erlangen, Göppingen, Springhornhof or Kraichtal and their art associations have managed to establish excellent programs of international status. This decentralized approach facilitates active work „on the periphery“, furthermore questions the given topography of nucleus and extremity as a foundation for discourse.


4. The temporary community

The materialization of a temporary community was the greatest challenge and prerequisite for a successful project.

Firstly, in the existent team of LandArbeit, a community spirit, a specific „we“ had to be established to allow an identification to a high degree between artists, locals and students and in this manner a successful implementation of such a large project.

A common problem with participatory projects lies with the relation between artists/organisers and the participating people and the quality of their contributions. Via long-term planning and dialogue, LandArbeit has created a platform for communication which allows a high quality of participation.

In the run-up, the initiators have established stable interfaces, with the associations and have organized open councils, discussions with the pastor and the mayor and meetings with interested parties in the local pubs. Several working groups on the festival committee (staffed on equal terms from village and university) assemble weekly to plan the festival week. The people involved can experience the potential of an identification with art, in addition , how art can create community and mental inspiration as a social binder.

The project requires everyone: village, students, university, all must learn to cooperate with each other, to respect one another, to notice needs and wishes and take them seriously, to integrate their particular specialist knowledge and  transfer authority  to the community and its members. It is very difficult to overcome particular occupational interests, especially in the field of art!

LandArbeit is more than an art project which creates "objects" open to view. LandArbeit is a project based on communication and participation, subsisting on the curiosity and open mindedness of all actors - including the visitors. During the final festival week from the 1st to the 8th of July, everyone can get an impression of it in Heinde.

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[1] Raimund Minichbauer: Regional Strategies. On Spatial Aspects of European Cultural Policy.
http://eipcp.net/policies/minichbauer1/en

[2] Aus: Suzana Milevska: Partizipatorische Kunst – Überlegungen zum  Paradigmenwechsel von Objekt zum Subjekt. In: Springerin 2/2006, S. 18