You may wish to adapt.

Transcription

1 You may wish to adapt. Public Space in a Political Perspective

2 SOMETIMES WE WONDER _ Winter and christmastime, everybody is looking forward to snow, punsh and christmaspresents. Holidays are ahead, with lights and friends and family. Well, at least thats how we think it has to be for everybody, of course. If one thinks about the fact that more and more people in the cities have no homes, have to beg for their food in stormy weather, have to sleep in the icy cold, it most certainly might change your mood. It seems inconceivably for those two realities to coexist. Motivated friends ask to save the number of the local Kältetelefon - a help-hotline put up from the Caritas. Please do call, if you see somebody in danger. But who will answer at the end of the line? Who is active at the Nightstreetworkers, when the others enjoy their punsh? How exactly can we help? How can one officially deal with this sensitive subject? How can we stop being stressed, and focus on the essence of the wintertime traditions? In this short seminar, talking about a very delicate and difficult subject as the strive for perfections in our lives next to the ugliness of poverty and misery, we most certainly were not able to find a solution to the problem we are aware of. There are many ways of dealing with awkward subjects. And humor and irony are one of them. Furthermore, we were aiming for a maybe scientific aproach. According to Claude Lévi-Struass, the father of modern anthropology, The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he s one who asks the right questions.. And we do have a lot of questions.

3 PLEASE BEHAVE AND LOOK ADEQUATE This is so not christmas spirit! Much better The collage with the titel Please behave and look adequate pictures two situations. The first is a very common scene, in front of a popular austrian supermarket, a homeless man is selling the Augustin, a official street magazine in Austria. A well groomed young women passes, and notices the man, commenting This is so not christmas spirit!, suggesting she is in someway disturbed by the homeless man. The second picture shows the same women, changed into a different outfit, and the exact same man, covered with kitschy christmas decoration. For the viewer this looks very odd, but the comment of the women is Much better. With a rather provoking scenario, this work is to show the irony of how people actually are disturbed in their imagination of their perfect world by daily encounters with poverty and misery. Often the approach is not to help avoid or change the cause for the happening, but rather to cover, make-up the situation so it doesn t interefere with the illusions.

4 ART AS A SOCIAL INTERVENTION? The collage with the titel Art as a social intervention? rises the question, if creative engagement coulbe be possible as a way to adress the subject of those next to us in need? The picture shows the popular Enzis, transfered into somekind of sturcture where a soup kitchen for homeless is established. Next to the people enjoying their punsh, three homeless men take their food. The Museumsquartier is a currently the most successfull and popular public space in vienna. Especially the younger generations enjoy it a s a place of meeting, drinking and different social events. What if exactly a place like this would be used for the an uncomfortable subject? How would people react, if this problem is put right in front of them. At a place the citizens find for pleasure and esthetical art happenings. What if this public space would be transfered into a political dimension?

5 A TRUELY FAIR WINTER IM MQ The third collage with the titel A truely fair winter im MQ takes as a subject a similar idea as the one before. It should test the reaction of people, when the structure of a very popular event as Winter im MQ is used for a completly different purpose.