Recreational Successions is designed as a wandering spatial installation for Shifting Grounds Festival at PACT Zollverein, made of modular elements that serve as a temporary meeting point and provide a source of shade and shelter for the audience.
The installation refers to the so-called pioneer forest. Pioneer plants appear first in post-extractive landscapes: grasses, then shrubs like sea buckthorn, blackberry, elder and trees such as birch, willow, robinia or alder. They are the first to reoccupy the terrain, because they can settle on barren soils and their presence prepares these for subsequent species.
Recreational Successions conceives of the pioneer forest that covers the Zollverein slag heap as a borrower of space and material. Appearing at various locations on the slag heap, the installation also refers to traditional nomadic forms of construction, which on the one hand obtain the required materials from so-called undemanding, fast-growing plants and on the other hand return the areas they use to the environment little or unaltered. The individual, itinerant elements latch onto each other, supporting and negotiating their usage in relying with the surrounding plants. In the temporary coexistence of slag heap and humans, the installation questions the rebirth of the landscape and the human regeneration which goes hand in hand with it. What is being regenerated here by whom and for whom is regeneration created?
Material: willow, hazelnut and robinia branches, birch twigs, birch trunks, aluminum profiles (precycled), rope, jute textile dyed with nettle, hardware / connectors
Team:
Research, Drawing & Production: Ben Wesch
Planning & Production: Nevo Bar
Experimenting & Production: Helene Rehahn