Project Day at the Community Garden, collaboration with Perion

On March 2015, employees of Perion came to work at the Community garden in Jessy Cohen. They created Pyramides with different types of herbs, that will be used for the community Kitchen.

The Picnic Principle of Participation

Participation is an idea which is intensely worked on in Stuttgart-Nord. A few places of participation and by far not all of them are:

• Three "KiFaze" (german, short for kids- and family-center) which invite families for Cafés, workshops, play groups or just to hang around. They often provide counseling for all kinds of problems like school, parenting, health care and so much more. 
• Haus 49, and the Kinder- und Jugendhaus Kirsten Maiba manages right now, both centers especially for the youth of Stuttgart-Nord. They worked on the great project "Nord - Ein Stadtteil dreht sich" last summer which is worth its own post!
• Christian and muslimic churches are visible in their work; of course on several annual celebrations, but also for example on the annual Jugendkirchefestival.
• Aside from the social aspects there are also associations which provide participation in the cultural area like turkish or armenian dance cooperations. 
• There is the association Infoladen Stuttgart 21 which provides information about the changes coming with the huge construction project Stuttgart 21.
• Because of the uprising of the Urban Gardening movement, two projects came to life: the Stadtacker Wagenhallen and the Nordlichtung. This is also a topic for an own post, because since this summer, there exists a municipal management for urban gardening in Stuttgart.

Last, but not least, there is us, the glocal neighbours. This group is special, because its members are not defined by a common background. By including social workers, artists and residents from two (different) neighbourhoods (and cultures), the group has not only to define its potential but also its actual topics and tasks.

And now, I come to the Picnic Principle of Participation. A good picnic thrives if everyone coming brings something. This something is not only food and drinks but also music, ideas for interesting games and conversations. Like this merry group where someone even brought a boat:

"The Picnic" from artist Thomas Cole, prior to 1860

The point is, that there is no top-down structure in a picnic. In contrast, the social, religious and cultural centers and associations in the list above provide a place, a program, an infrastructure and then invite the people to participate. Some projects are not realizable if there are not enough participants. For someone to participate you have to have a distinctive interest or topic, sometimes even a distinctive mind-set.

Whereas with the Picnic Principle you follow a different approach by installing other structures in a participation project.

• Not only do you provide a bottom-up approach because everything is chosen and brought by the group. 
• Also, you appreciate contributions which are not comparable on a common basis with each other: Each contribution is equally valuable. 
• Third, you do not need a certain group size: Your project should work with two people or with fifty. 
• At last, you don't expect a certain outcome but trust the potential of the group.

I admit that the Picnic Principle has probably its limits. But I like the idea and I think the glocal neighbours are a good space to try it out.


-by Liv

Wasteland Twinning Project: A first draft

Inspired by the lecture about the Wasteland Twinning project, we, Stephan and Liv from the Nordbahnhof group, decided to work out an idea to participate by twinning wastelands in Nordbahnhof and Jessy Cohen. In both neighbourhoods there are still open lands. There is the Nordlichtung garden which has been an urban garden for the past four years and now has been turned into building land:

Image of the picnic place and some flower beds of the Nordlichtung from "Auf der Nordlichtung".

And there is the wasteland in Jessy Cohen which is very close to the Digital Art Center:

Image of the wasteland close to the Digital Art Center from Google Maps.

The future of both areas is unclear. It is also not in our hands. We are not even allowed to trespass on the Nordlichtung anymore. That got us thinking: Why is not allowed anymore to step on land we were working on before? Doesn't modifying something, feeling responsible for something mean that you have certain rights to this land? Why does someone has more rights to land they paid for and build a fence around than someone who lives close to it and can really use it? Isn't that strange? Why do we think this is normal?

Well, from this starting point, our thoughts swirled even further. What is normal anyway? What is normalcy? What is normal in society? Realizing that the society itself has its own mind, we also started thinking about swarms and the intelligence of swarms which is a fascinating topic. Some swarms act seemingly intelligent by having a few set of rules for every individual. For example, a school of fish can swim around some barrier by the simple rule that they have to have a distinct distance to everything (except water). Thus, they not only don't crash into underwater cliffs but also not into their neighbour fish.

All these mashed up and mixed with the third glass of a good red, lead us to the first draft for our Wasteland Twinning project.

Everyone who likes to participate gets this basic set of rules:

1. Go to the wasteland as close as possible and look at it.
2. Think about the question "Is this normal?" for some time.
3. Document your thoughts.
4. Put your results on the blog.

What is your opinion? Do you like the idea? Would you change something? Do you think this would make us more intelligent than fish?

School of fish image from pixabay.

Jessy Cohen's Garden

A glance to  the year-opening for the group of children working at the garden

Lecture: Wasteland Twinning

We heard a great lecture about the Wasteland Twinning project (Check out their website). Currently, we are thinking about a way to join it with twinning wastelands in Stuttgart Nordbahnhof and in Jessy Cohen.

End of Temporary Urban Garden Nordlichtung

The Nordlichtung is a community garden in the Nordbahnhofviertel in Stuttgart-Nord. The residents had the possibility to use the waste land for gardening as long as there wasn't any construction planned. Since the start in 2011 the land became quite green and colorful as documented on the Nordlichtung-blog: We now try to find a new spot in the neighbourhood. But also we will have a great party to celebrate the good times we had.

Harvest

Small harvest from the community garden at the Israeli Centre for Digital Art

Urban Garden in Stuttgart: Nordlichtung

Urban Jungle Nordlichtung, 
Stuttgart