SOCIAL SCULPTURE


Short introduction about the term Social Sculpture

 

I like to give a brief introduction about Social Sculpture as the principles form the base for the concepts of my performance work and my most important  workshop.

 

Social sculpture is a phrase to describe an expanded concept of art that was advocated by the German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), in the seventies of the last century. Beuys created the term "social sculpture" to embody his understanding of art's potential to transform society. As a work of art, a social sculpture includes human activity that strives to structure and shape society or the environment. The central idea of a social sculptor is an person/artist who creates structures in society using language, thoughts, actions, and objects. Social Sculpture revolved around four main axes:

body awareness - spatial awareness - creativity - collaboration

The position of the body in surrounding environment/location. The concept focus on the relations between the bodies to each other, movement, objects and surrounding space / environment. Participants are engaged in physical movements and actions, changing roles, decision-making, exchange of ideas and interrogating performativity. Sculptural and textile materials will be introduced as working tools.

Two of my projects  are built exclusive on the concepts of Social Sculpture:

Performance Unfolding - Unwrapped

participative performance and workshop based on the concepts and principles of Social Sculpture 

Schoolproject Hier & Jetzt (Here & Now)

A interdisciplinary  project which focus and tailor made  for pupils and children. It is also based on the concepts of Social Sculpture 

Unfolding - Unwrapped  - a Social Sculpture Workshop


The principles and concepts of social sculpture do not change and remain the same as in the performance variant. The difference is that the performance is a workshop with registered participants. During the workshops, the different phases and sequences of the four main axes on which social sculpture is based are trained. Creativity draws a line between a passive and an active agenda in people's lives. Creativity begins with questions. This development process is both extraordinarily broad and incredibly relevant for the generation of strong contextual work and social behavior. Regardless of whether we are socially committed. Against this background, the sequences of the workshop / performance focus on the behavior of people in a group and an individual. The workshop confronts the participants and the audience sometimes real, sometimes metaphorically with the situations of the confrontation situation - on their own - against each other. However, the central theme of the sequences also leads to finding a way to work together and to create a democratic process.

Workshop Social Sculpture  Unfolded-Unwrapped in the classroom

In the classroom, Goethe Center, Yerevan, Armenia, March 2018

After talking to the head of the language department and two teachers from the Goethe Center in Yervan, I tried something new. The workshop became part of the German language classes. I used a shorter version of Unfolded-Unwrapped in German to integrate the workshop into the classroom. The experiment was carried out with three different groups of students. However, I should not only lead the workshop, but also explain the concept of social sculpture in more detail. That the term was first created by Joseph Beuys and his ideas behind it. After the workshop, the students discussed in German how they saw the workshop and the concept

For the students, it was ultimately a new and different use of their language skills. Her knowledge of German culture was also expanded from a completely different perspective