Books We Should Be Friends
Books We Should Be Friends
It began with a chair. And it began with Bauhaus.
February 2009, Berlin. The River Spree was frozen for long enough that people began abandoning their furniture on the ice. My friend Nik describes winter sun glinting off the edge of an abandoned chair. He imagines it falling into the depths of the river - a forgotten, drowned seat..
Meanwhile my collaborator, Bryan, began thinking about the fact that by 2009 it was possible to buy the exact same chair in Jena, Germany, as in Chicago, USA. The Bauhaus movement cherished the idea that high quality design could be made available for everybody through inexpensive industrial production. That revolutionary goal has certainly been achieved via globalised industry, but what exactly does that mean for the things we use in daily life?
As the starting point for a public art project exploring Bauhaus’ legacy, we decided to set up a ‘workshop’ – a place of production with citizens of Jena from all walks of life - to explore ideas of production and the design of neighbourhoods. During the week of the project we attempted to create practical and economically appropriate designs that could be integrated into the daily local lifestyle of Jena!
Response from the festival director:
‘In many nights I dream of repeating this project, I think it gave me a lot of love to my neighbourhood. When I read about Frederico Fellini, it brought your project to mind.
Firstly, he saw himself as a ‘visioner’ - some scenes of his films produce imaginations and dreams and he said people have to learn how to ‘do’ good relationships in order to produce a good community. Secondly, I read a comment of his lead actor Marcello Mastroianni about the shooting of ‘La Strada’. He said something like: "We worked together about six months and we were so lucky all the time, there was no stress, we worked until Fellini was tired and we had such a lucky time. I would have liked to work about 6 years."
So, if my way comes to chances like this, I will take it again…’
