16th Intern. Workshop Week  in Lüben

And again back to the country side . I am participating at

Internationale Werkstattwoche – International Workshop Week “Dignity”

01.07.2023 – 10.07.2023 / Lüben, Lower Saxony. Germany

For ten days, 18 artists from seven nations stayed in the village of Lüben (today part of the town of Wittingen)/ The artists working in the fields of painting, drawing, photography, video and installation. I gave three times a life performance, conducted a workshop for pupil's and created two installations works. 

 "The Plant" Live Performance, 13 minutes, 8th & 9th July 2023

During the exhibition and final presentation of the 16th International Workshop Week Symposium in Lüben, I also presented a new live performance. I have performed three times, once on Saturday July 8th and twice on July 9th 2023. Actually the performance is based on a video performance that I had tried out in May this year during the Pedvale project in Pedvale, Latvia

The work, like the two installation works I created during the symposium, has a philosophical approach, based on Buddhist and Zen thoughts, but at the same time containing autobiographical elements. It is a live performance with deliberate movements and without words. To reflect the concept of dignity in relation to time, stillness, the power of solitude and the fact that every living being and every object has its dignity.

Photos : Vincent Grahn

The Wednesday afternoon 5th of July of the Symposium in Lüben was reserved for an art workshop for students between the ages of 11 and 16. 

Two to three students were assigned to each of the artists participating in the symposium. I had been assigned two eleven-year-old students. Who were also the youngest participants. At the beginning I briefly explained what means  installations, land art and performance and showed some examples. But I think it's more important that students or children try things and possibilities themselves. Just experiment with your creativity. I try to avoid creating a school atmosphere, feeding them art-educational nonsense, or pushing them in a direction that I like to see as an artist. I prepared very few things, e.g. plastic foil in different thicknesses and two different types of thin rope. They would look for the rest of the material in the area themselves. During the afternoon, when I worked with the two students, I gave as few instructions and interfered with their actions as little as possible. The result of this afternoon was both creating with the wind and experimenting with materials and elements. They also create a delicate land art art piece with the rope and branches between two large trees. However, they returned to the plastic foil and went to the fields to make the best use of the wind and space. The desire to get off the ground and fly away was the inspiration for their creativity on this particularly afternoon.