\nCollaborating institution:<\/strong> Unterneust\u00e4dter Schule, Kassel
\nCurators:<\/strong> Nikolett ER\u0150SS, Eszter L\u00c1Z\u00c1R, Borb\u00e1la SZALAI, Katalin SZ\u00c9KELY (OFF-Biennale Budapest)
\nSpecial thanks:<\/strong> Thomas Engelbert; K&K Stauden plant nursery, Kassel; University of Kassel, Department of Landscaping, Landscape Management and Vegetation Development; Unterneust\u00e4dter Schule, Kassel<\/p>\n
OFF-Playground is a space that oscillates between a playground, a junkyard, a construction site\u2014places of creativity, transgression, refuse, and regeneration. It takes you elsewhere: to realities in and beyond dreams. In and around the boathouse Ahoi, the space is being transformed by numerous actors\u2014artists, collectives, architects, children communities, as well as the visitors\u2014enacting construction, mobilizing the boundlessness of imagination, to find a different world beyond the playground fence.<\/p>\n
The playground is a microcosm, a world of all spaces. It is a space that embraces a myriad of other spaces, depending on how the children playing there use it and what they think of it. It challenges and subverts prevailing social contexts, architectural norms, and notions of the continuity of space and time. Just like our dreams. Playgrounds are heterotopias, spaces that disrupt the continuity and normality of common everyday places, places removed from ordinary time and determined meaning. They are disjunctures that contest and invert normality and make intermediate worlds tangible.
\nFor most of us, the playground is a space of freedom, experimentation, and risk-taking. On the other hand, it is also an institutionalized space where many children become acquainted with the rules of being in a community for the first time, and where security measures and safety instructions need to be met and followed. The playground equipment and games prescribe a particular mode of use, and in relation to this, as we know well, we constantly bypass and override them in the course of play, creating new games and new rules that understands the world along different correlations.<\/p>\n
In a world of \u2018whatifs\u2019 and \u2018whynots\u2019, play\u2014especially in its role-playing, \u201cas if\u201d guise\u2014not only mimics or symbolizes, but also rewrites and prefigures the ways individuals or communities engage and work with each other, while creating and recreating the social domain, an interlocking web of interactions. Although the projects presented are mostly made from simple (construction or used) materials, they use the power of imagination (from daydreaming to social and ecological utopias), to experiment with models of collaboration and collective action\u2014to explore their possibilities as well as their limitations.<\/p>\n
Even before documenta fifteen, the Ahoi boathouse had a specific locality that was open to host new dreams, functions and uses of the space. The works presented in, around and over the building form a kaleidoscopic space that flips reality and puts it in our hands.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
RECETAS URBANAS: Jumping in Hanoi (The Everything Brigde \/ Die Allesbr\u00fccke), 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n On the playground we are elsewhere, outside the world we live in, yet at home. On the playground, like in a fairy tale, we have special abilities, we can be anyone and anywhere, we create the framework of the game. We imagine, for example, jumping over a building and landing at the end of the jump in a completely different place from where we started. Buildings are like rules: they are ordered, they are given, and sometimes they are exactly where we imagined something else to be. Buildings, even rules, can be bypassed, but what if we skip them now and build our own. Our own buildings and new rules, together.<\/p>\n Recetas Urbanas is an international community that builds different buildings, schools, community centres, in collaboration with the citizens who will be the future users of the buildings. They seek answers to local needs together, they play together, with great dedication, responsibility and joy; in other words, freely.<\/p>\n This bridge was built by the students of the Unterneust\u00e4dter Schule, Kassel with the help of their teachers, the children\u2019s families, friends and many helpers, mostly from recycled materials. Recetas Urbanas: Santiago Cirugeda, Alice Attout, Carlos V\u00e1zquez Gard\u00f3n, Garazi Merodio Ayarza, Ania Jaca Sanz de Arellano, Jorge Barroso (Bifu), Martina Helmke, Emilien Le Goff, Mario Bestion, Isadora Grumiaux<\/p>\n Production of documenta fifteen and OFF-Biennale Budapest<\/p>\n In collaboration with Unterneust\u00e4dter Schule, Kassel Recetas Urbanas: Allesbr\u00fccke, photo: Szabolcs Vida, OFF-Biennale Archive<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n \u00c1D\u00c1M KOKESCH:<\/strong><\/p>\n Untitled (Caravan), 2022<\/strong> Production of documenta fifteen and OFF-Biennale Budapest Untitled (Meander), 2021<\/strong> \u00c1d\u00e1m Kokesch : Untitled (Caravan), 2022, photo: \u00c1d\u00e1m Kokesch<\/p><\/div>\n \u00c1d\u00e1m Kokesch: Untitled, 2021, photo: Mikl\u00f3s Sur\u00e1nyi<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n ARCHITECTURE UNCOMFORTABLE WORKSHOP (AU Workshop: D\u00e9nes Emil Ghiczy, Luk\u00e1cs Szederk\u00e9nyi)? The House of Councillor Krespel, 2022 In the sandpits of the playgrounds children use sand\u2014a material regularly used in building constructions\u2014to build castles or fortresses, make-shift and make-believe buildings for their role-playing games. Yet, whenever they have the opportunity, children also use real-life construction sites as playgrounds. They roam and play around piles of building materials, climb up the scaffolding; they explore, take risks, and rewrite the conventions and rules set by the strict regulations of the adult world.<\/p>\n The same curiosity, and the same transgressive and world-creating, world-transforming creativity characterized the titular character of the short story Councillor Krespel by the 19th-century German Romantic writer, E.T.A. Hoffmann, which has been a source of inspiration for the Budapest-based architect duo Architecture Uncomfortable Workshop (AU Workshop) for many years. The story begins with the construction of Councillor Krespel\u2019s own house, which, without plans, evolves as the building progresses. He instructs the workers, with whom he works on the construction site with impulsive, constantly evolving ideas. He only determines the foundation and the materials used, besides that, the builders are given a free hand through the process. The construction takes place in a cheerful atmosphere, and in the end they create an unusual, asymmetric, yet homelike building.<\/p>\n Taking Hoffmann\u2019s short story as their vantage point, AU Workshop have recreated this imaginary building in the area around the boathouse Ahoi. Their starting point is to look at construction sites from a new perspective: using the creative potentials that are inherent in the building process and in the materials lying around, also inviting the builders to participate in their creative process. The House of Councillor Krespel consists, for the most part, of leftover materials coming from the workshop of the architects that were previously used during their past building projects. Having been \u201cfreed\u201d from the confines of their original purpose, these materials are now ready to be reused by the visitors. According to them: \u201cThe building site of the house of Councillor Krespel was completely devoid of the predestination of planning. It was shaped by the momentary feelings of the environment and the people in it, creating an aura of open and free building play. This is the atmosphere we want to capture and create on the banks of the Fulda river in Kassel. A construction site that includes already finished architectural elements such as walls, roofs, towers, shutters, eaves, which can be freely reinterpreted by the materials (gravel, sand) and tools found in the area. In this way, the sounds and atmosphere of the site are evoked during use.\u201d<\/p>\n Special thanks: J\u00f3zsef Elek (tinsmith), Vencel Kustra, Bendeg\u00faz Szederk\u00e9nyi, Boldizs\u00e1r Szederk\u00e9nyi, J\u00f3zsef Szederk\u00e9nyi, Zsombor T\u00f3th, Andr\u00e1s Zoltai<\/p>\n ARCHITECTURE UNCOMFORTABLE WORKSHOP (AU Workshop: D\u00e9nes Emil Ghiczy, Luk\u00e1cs Szederk\u00e9nyi) The House of Councillor Krespel, 2022, Bootsverleih Ahoi, Kassel, photo: Szabolcs Vida<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n RANDOMROUTINES (Tam\u00e1s Kasz\u00e1s, Kriszti\u00e1n Krist\u00f3f):<\/strong><\/p>\n Signal Jamming Station, 2022<\/strong> \u201cThis lucid thing wasn\u2019t supposed to be illegal, but everyone in it treated it if it were\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Dispersed all around the space, the video-installation tells a story about the sect of Lucid dreamers, who practice semi-somnambulate techniques in their mutual and conscious dreams. Lucid dreamers experience a hybrid form of existence; during the course of lucid dreaming the sleeper is not only aware of being asleep, but also capable of making conscious decisions in specific situations and creating an effect within their own dreams, on the dreams of others who they meet in the shared dream space, and even on the awaken part of life. While surrounded by an air of implicit illegality, here in the realm of dreams actions have a different value, they are more thoughtful, they take higher stakes, and as opposed to being awake, they are not influenced by external circumstances or interests. During a lucid dream one is inescapably self-identical.<\/p>\n By stepping out of the private corners of the dream space, dreamers are able to connect their different dreamscapes and form a new shared landscape, which is on the one hand a space of infinite fantasy without fears or imprints of past traumas, but also a violent, frightening and oppressive space, full of revenge-dreamers and fleeing hordes.<\/p>\n During the narration we can follow how a collective evolves, how the individual dissolves into it, and how both become unfulfilled promises by the end.<\/p>\n The theme of possibilities, detours and dead-ends of collectivism continues beyond the isolated dreamscape of the screening room. Stepping out from the dark, we can see a more than eight meters high steel sculpture \u2013 a wobbling human tower \u2013 and chairs in different arrangements. The motifs on the chairs are based on the artists\u2019 collection of various everyday creative solutions and decorative motifs made from reinforcing bars, that spread during the period of socialist shortage economy and can still be spotted today. Sitting on one of the chairs we again see a fictive group of people, whose members are climbing up on each other\u2019s shoulders in an attempt to repair and hold the shattered, soon-to-fall sky.<\/p>\n Production of documenta fifteen and OFF-Biennale Budapest Special thanks to: A Dream on Lucids, 2016 \u2013 2022<\/strong> Cast: Music: Special thanks to: Randomroutines: Signal Jamming Station, 2022, photo: Courtesy of the artists<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n EVA KO\u0164\u00c1TKOV\u00c1: Daydreaming Workstation, 2022 After waking up and before falling asleep daydreaming allows you to step out from daily routines, from hectic and stressful situations, not as a way to escape into safer, distant lands, but to disrupt those normative and harmful categories, that otherwise seem to be solid and non-modifiable, in order to be able to critically and creatively reconsider the world around us and open the mind\u2019s eye to a different future.<\/p>\n The Daydreaming Workstation creates space for collective and individual daydreams and visions. It takes the form of a large textile and rope installation with various hanging pillows, sleeping bags, cocoon-shaped formations, places for sitting and lying down or for resting the head. Part of the installation are audio stories of mostly children narrators, at the same time, the voice of the daydream guide sounds at regular intervals, helping visitors in guided daydreaming with the aim to open up steady modes of perception, to activate the imagination and to engage the senses. The installation also works for \u201clive daydreaming\u201d: in the form of educational programs, workshops and different sharing formats with the help of dream facilitators. The daydreaming workstation shares stories and at the same time collects them, keeping its archive alive and growing. It focuses on stories that disrupt the current setting of the world, which divides its inhabitants into privileged and oppressed, healthy and sick, normal and different, functional and useless. These stories reveal a dreamscape, where freer, more inclusive and empathetic ways of existence are feasible.<\/p>\n We are a daydreaming work station and we invite you to join us!<\/p>\n Co-creators: M\u00edna Bas\u00edkov\u00e1, Alice Louise Bransten, Sophie Louise Bransten, Jon\u00e1\u0161 Chadim, Johana Chadimov\u00e1, Alma Fuxj\u00e4ger, Kira Fuxj\u00e4ger, Vincent Jedli\u010dka, Egon Ji\u0159i\u010dka, Johan Ji\u0159i\u010dka, Anna Kosat\u00edkov\u00e1, Cec\u00edlie Koteck\u00e1, V\u00e1clav Sk\u00e1la<\/p>\n Production of documenta fifteen and OFF-Biennale Budapest<\/p>\n With the Support of: Hunt Kastner Gallery (Prague), Meyer Riegger (Berlin), Tschechisches Zentrum Berlin<\/p>\n
\nIt not only crosses the building, but also, if you like, the river Fulda. It can link cities all over the world, be two pillars of a time-travel journey, or stand with one foot in the realm of reality and the other in the realm of fantasy. And after the 100 days of documenta fifteen, it is being redesigned with the help of the children of the Unterneust\u00e4dter Schule, to enrich their world for the long term.<\/p>\n
\nWith the Support of: Acci\u00f3n Cultural Espa\u00f1ola<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/offbiennale.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/recetas_urbanas_ahoi.jpg\" "\\"Recetas")
<\/a>
\nThe caravan, like a playground, is a space of freedom, of being elsewhere. We are at home in it, while we are on the move, different dimensions of time and space meet in it, giving us the possibility to be in all of them and none of them at the same time. Our possibilities are multiplied, the unexpected and the accidental become the keystones of reality. The caravans of the eighties are now run out of dreams, most of them at the end of their lives, many of them led by their own mortality back from their adventurous journey to a boresome reality. There are exceptions, however, for example, when a change of location is not even necessary that the kaleidoscopic interplay of different realities and spatial slices start a new journey, this time from inside, from the space of the caravan.
\nIn the white, dreamlike and fragile space, exposed to time, there is a mirror installation where the surfaces, mirroring each other, set up a space trap. They make the space splintery and ungraspable, which carries the possibility of experiencing reality as something else, but \u2013 for lack of access to the space \u2013 fragmentary, as in dreams. Peeping from the outside makes us curious, like children we build our world from fragments, which reflects the outside world, but it\u2019s okay if it\u2019s different at the end.<\/p>\n
\nSupported by Kisterem Gallery, Budapest<\/p>\n
\nThe installation is a floating series of tiny building blocks, fragments, everyday pieces of material given new possibilities, which, as they are densified and distanced, form momentary assemblages. It is a continuous series of thoughts setting off while we are half alsleep, scribbles and notes, world models, a piece of an infinite game that can continue in any direction and in any way.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/strong>installation (pinewood, tin, gravel, sand, glass, chipboard, EPDM rubber, beeswax)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nWelded steel, paint<\/p>\n
\nWith the Support of: Kisterem Gallery, Budapest<\/p>\n
\nKatar\u00edna Klusov\u00e1, Judit Reszegi, Tam\u00e1s Shvella, R\u00f3bert S\u00f3s, Margit Valk\u00f3<\/p>\n
\nVideo-installation<\/p>\n
\nFemale voice: Jessica Lea Miley
\nMale voice: G\u00e1bor Erlich
\nPit-man: P\u00e9ter Tomaj
\nAnaesthetist: Viljami Wager
\nCamera-head: Lasse Poser
\nWhisperers: Tam\u00e1s Kasz\u00e1s, Kriszti\u00e1n Krist\u00f3f
\nPoetry reciter: Owen Good<\/p>\n
\nSleepwalking theme, Rebar harp theme: Marci Krist\u00f3f
\nMemory excercise theme: microsamples from L\u2019Histoire du soldat by Igor Stravinsky
\nPeripheries theme: Randomroutines, cello by Gy\u00f6ngyi Barta
\nAll other samples by Randomroutines<\/p>\n
\nIstv\u00e1n Cs\u00e1k\u00e1ny, Csaba Farkas, Fanni Heged\u0171s, D\u00f3ri Kangiszer, Viktor Kotun, Janka Sulyok, Borb\u00e1la Szalai, Istv\u00e1n Sz\u00edv\u00f3s, Ninni Wager<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Installation with sound
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n