Grundtvig D.I.Y.

ELEPHANT IN A TENT

2011-12-02T08:17:00.001-08:00

Grundtvig D.I.Y. at Divo Institute Kolin CzechRepublic

Europe Days 6–9.05.11

The Divo Institute house is conceivedas a living museum, each room has its own particular styling, with many paintingsand installations made by Sonja and Mark ortheir invited guests. From the ten partners, Czentrifuga, Fleda, Slam, Kulturpark 3000, Divo, Non Grata managedto take part.

Open Workshop

Sonja from the Divo Institute produceda great blog to hype the occasion “elephantinatent.blogspot.com”Hopefully the video clip we made about this meeting explains thesignificance of Elephants and all things Europe (Since then Peter Rampazzo from Interflug Galaktika recognised the connection with Hannibals elephantinvasion of Europe.) Czentrifuga invited streetartist,screenprinter and subculture all rounder Urs “Mad Cows” from Bern, to coordinate a stencil making workshop and various stencilswere produced throughout the day in the beautifull Divo garden. Thelarge elephant cut-out shown in the video above was a spontaneous sitespecific idea made from cardboard , conveniently found in the trashfrom Divos brand new kitchen!

In keeping with theme of large animalsMark from the Divo Institute gave an informal workshop “Dance withthe Dinosaur” - a reflection on curating alternative projects inlarge institutions. "be aware of the possibilities andloopholes, occupy and use holes in the system". He talked abouthis long experience in the squat scene in post -wall Berlin and thenlater, throughout Europe in "off-spaces" (non-commercial,non institutional, art spaces) One of Divos next projects will besetting up - a temporary autonomous space in Prague National Galleryin Oktober, installations, art, music, meeting, performance andparty, the first time anything like this has been done in thisprestigous location.

Activities

Audio/ Video documentary presented byo.s. Fléda from the last Grundtvig meeting on Stubnitz in Hamburg... the brutal, comic truth about a Partnership still looking to findits feet.

Opening of the ”Around Background”(open for public)

Photo exhibition of 80´s Czechoslovakunderground music scene with a presentation by Lenka Zogatová (o.s. Fléda)

Concert: Urband (CZ) violin/guitar/double bass and vocal trio.

Dragan (Czentrifuga) made a great fieldrecording and mixdown from this, you can

hear an excerpt inthe video clip, and more at www.archive.org/details/kolin.

Followed by Djs Miki Disc - Jockey (CZ)& Cindy Wonderfull (USA/Berlin)

Internal Workshop/Meeting

The meeting was more of a series ofmany smaller exchanges, which seems to be the way the partnership isdeveloping. New patterns and new alliances emerge – friendlyorganisations sitting in, taking part in the discourse, bring newideas and proposals for other ideas outside of the existing Grundtvigparameters. “Our organisation is an organism” Stephan (Kulturpark3000) More tips, tricks and words of wisdom from Gabba (Czentifuga)"wann du immer auf alle wartest kommst du zum nix" whichalso reinforces a more de-centralised, less rigid, process ofinteraction and exchange.

Gabba presented the first finishedpages from the Grundtvig D.I.Y. Manual „Cosmic Hospital“ .It wasan opportunity for the Partners to easily see how to create pagedesigns. Screenprinting does not lend itself to a lot of fine textprint so, in this sense, the manual is more about visualrepresentation of ideas, together with minimal, essential texts,logos or slogans. The idea is to incorporate all the interestingvisual elements (fotos, drawings, graphic design etc) that expressbest the individual Partners and what they do. Partners are asked tothink of a sentence or a phrase that describes their organisation.Welook forward to having a beautiful artefact to show to futuregenerations and make old Mr Grundtvig chuckle from his grave!

Five members of Non Grata dropped by enroute from Paris to Piotrkow Trybunalski (Poland) as part of theirintensive Diverse Universe Performance Festival tour. Although Aaronfrom the Stubnitz could not attend (busy sailing the Stubnitz ship!)we talked some more about the idea of the ship coming to Tallinn.Also taking part in the discussions and the stencil workshop werethree members from the Küme art association in Turkey: ZeynepPehlivan, Burak Baskin from Ankara and Hakan Pehlivan who teaches atthe faculty of arts at the university in Kayseri.

To help make the Partnership moretransparent amongst ourselves Stine (Czentrifuga) asked "Whatdoes every Partner do (an example) in the context of socialinteraction.This also links up with our Grundtvig Manual work inprogress...

Iza from Stowarzyszenie WspólnotaMazurska explained about how the long running Jazz Club "Galeria"in Giżycko had a fire. This building is one of the oldest in thetown. Those present offered support in case they need help with thereconstruction or benefit actions.

Evaluation

With a ten Partner network itsproblematic to get each organisation present at meetings because ofconflicting commitments, also, theres often a chaos factor due totravel delays. It seems that we need minimum three months advancenotice about a future meeting to have a chance to get everyonepresent. In this sense, it makes sense for the Partners who stillhave to act as host that they look now for setting future dates formeetings? We forgot to take care of the attendance (mobilities)protokol which makes for unnessessary and tedious backtracking workafterwards.
Czentrifuga has already made anexhibition and performance in Zurich thanks to getting connected through the Partnership, it looks like they will be taking part at the Prague NationalGallery in Oktober. In fact its quite tricky to keep track of all themany smaller exchanges that are happening , so many differentdialogues ...things are going positively viral!

Stephan(Kulturpark 3000) has recentlyparticipated in making the final report for another GrundtvigPartnership. Some points he mentioned:

European Shared Treasure – This EUdatabase gives a comprehensive overview of all the Grundtvig Learning Partnerships. Czentrifuga sunsequently uploaded a logo (thanks Simone!) and the GrundtvigD.I.Y. project description.

It's more sensefull to spread out thetravelling (mobilities) evenly over the two year period.

Every partner should fill out a finalreport at the end of the two years, which is

available online.

Future Meetings

17 July 2011 Gizycko /Gradzkie (Poland) This isan opportunity for both meeting and holiday combined! . We are invited to stay in Gradzkie at Kasia and Sigasbeautiful farmhouse /windmill forthe week following the Grundtvig activities to enjoy theMasuren countryside, swimming, horse riding and the amazing local cornershop!

Here's the suggested itinerary from Stowarzyszenie Wspoinota Mazurska:

Fr.15 July Arrival

Sa. 16 July Wiatrak (Windmill) PoetryFestival . This magical event happens for more than 15 years now.

So.17 July Grundtvig D.I.Y. Meeting

Oktober 2011 Kosice (Slovakia) This isan opportunity for the Partnership to meet

and also present our organisation atthe “Spots” conference . This meeting is in preparationfor the European Capital avtivities “Project Kosice Interface 2013”
The main themes for the conference :

-Decentralisation of culture, takingculture from the city to the outskirts

(for example the large Romanycommunities in this area).

-Long term transformation of the citythrough culture.

-Developing creative industries.

-Support for civil society participationand communities.

September 08 2011Berlin : 20 Years Unter Druck e.V / 10 Years Rohkultur (Czentrifugaa.k.a. Fleischerei)

Unter Druck e.V. isthe parent organisation of Czentrifuga. This will be both acelebration and an awareness day event held on Leopold Platz,Wedding, Berlin. We could use this chance for a small meeting in caseanyone would like to come over or maybe even take part? Ideallywe would like to use the “Grundtvig Tent” for this?!

GRUNDTVIG D.I.Y. MANIFESTO

2011-12-02T08:11:00.001-08:00

Grundtvig DIY on MS StubnitzBaakenhafen Hamburg 4-8 Januar 2011

MS Stubnitz is an ex fish trawler andfactory ship built in Stralsund, in former East German in 1964.The ships homeport is Rostock on the Baltic coast and in 1992 theship was bought for its scrap value by a group of Europeanartists and designers who began the slow process ofreconstruction which has led to Stubnitz becoming a fully functioningmoving cultural platform , having visited more than than tenEuropean ports and having hosted thousands of live events,exhibitions and seminars. A perfect setting for the second GrundtvigD.I.Y. Meeting!

Ninety nine per cent of our LearningPartnership was represented, beginning with the initial "settlingin" (the ship has around forty cabins for crew and guests) andinformal discussions about the next days activities. Also, as theStubnitz ship is very much a do-it-yourself project .. coordinatingthe help with cooking and cleaning!

There were three organisedmeetings. At the first , there were also small delegations from FSK (www.fsk-hh.org)the Hamburg free culture radio station, Jean-Hervé Péron from the legendary cult experimental “krautrock”band Faust together with his colleagues who organise thelong-established Shiphorst Avant Garde Festival(www.avantgardefestival.de). Also, present was Thierry Jaussoinrepresenting the Lebanese avant-garde and experimental musicassociation Acousmatik System / Stubnitz in MED(http://acousmatiksystem.blogspot.com/)

This was a good opportunity for bothGrundtvig DIY and the drop-in guests to explain a little moreabout their respective organisations. Some memories from the last(first) Grundtvig meeting were refreshed and for Ville Karel (NonGrata) it was an opportunity to meet and greet the partners for thefirst time. We also checked the steel container on the Stubnitz“Vordeck” to think about if we like the idea to fix it up anduse it as a mobile object for the partnership.

At a second, smaller meeting in the“Offiziers Messe” we discussed website functionality preparing usfor the final meeting where Noel (Stubnitz/Czentrifuga) presented ournew Do-It-Yourself cms Web-zine idea , that all partners can use anddevelop, but first we had to agree on a domain name. Imagining end ofFebruary for the “launch”, this meant the name should be decidedsoon. A few names and ideas were discussedand, as no particular idea stood out , “Grundtvig D.I.Y.” whichis a shortened version of our official partnership title becamedefacto the name for the Partnership. Noel proposed to give everyPartner their own password and login information for the new website but his processdidnt work out, mainly because of distractions due to preparationwork for the coming activities and workshops so, instead, it wasdecided that every partner be given this info per email, givingeverybody the chance to change passwords by themselves if necessary.

Towards the end of the Grundtwig twoyears period it is hoped that all partners will have had the chanceto try the website functionality and upload infos themselves. Asenvisioned in our collective project description, there should be a“Web Report“ section on the website , which every hostingpartner could make themselves and also a blog. (One year later, here it is!) Also important: tokeep everybody updated between meetings so that workflow can bemaintained which we hope the website will help to achieve.

Meanwhile, Gabba has started an opensource Grundtvig foto platform which we can link to the website:http://foto.obin.org/grundtvig.

So far there are two folders of fotoson this site - from the first Berlin meeting and also @ Stubnitz.Thanks to Gabba, Marko (Czentrifuga) and Nina (Slam).

Open Workships on Stubnitz

-Czentrifuga Sticker Design Workshop:Results (Products) were presented at the next meeting in Kolin.

-Czentrifuga Screenprinting Workshop:Stubnitz-calendar being one of the results.

-Bastel Workshop: Costumes andaccessoires from recycled plastic (for the following daysperformance)

-Stubnitz AV Workshop: This was splitover two days , where partner members and interesetd members of theRostock public were given the possibility to help in the process oflive audio video production , including live camera and video mixplus a general overview how the A/V production works. The second partof the workshop on the following day, gave the participants thechance to check the previous days documentation and see how the postproduction and archiving functions .

The Stubnitz crew also presented theirnewly re-launched website and on-line archive (http://ms.stubnitz.com).

Conclusions

Actions speak louder than words andsite-specific improvisation and smaller group interactions seem to bethe natural direction in which the Partnership is heading with a“work in progress” philosophy.

–Focus: It's difficult to keep theconcentration focused in larger groups, especially as the mainlanguage spoken is English and not everyone attending understandswhats being discussed. In this sense, we concluded that its not essential that everyone attend, just one or more persons that can speakfor their respective group and communicate the results of themeeting(s) back to their organisations.

–Timing: its important that the hostpartner is not busy with setting up an event or busy with othercommitments. The host should allow time for this in their scheduleand set the agenda so that it suits them the best. Also, itsimportant to watch that none of the Partner artists have commitments to rehearsals, performanceor whatever, at the same time when the meeting is set.

When setting the agenda its good whenthe host can allow/suggest a time when its possible that the Partnersget a chance to visit other projects or some local sight seeing etc.Also, not every partner organisationcan be represent for the entireprogramme of activities so its important to fix one main day forimportant Grundtvig matters with one main meeting for example and also thechance to get involved with at least one or more of the skill sharingactivities/process.

Financial Plan:

In keeping with Grundtvigrecommendations, it was again confirmed ,that Czentrifuga care forthe ongoing management (including website) of the Partnership and tocheck that the Grundtvig requirements are being taken care of, forwhich each partner allocates a % from its budget.

Evaluation Forms:

This point was not talked aboutalthough. It become more and more important that we find a way toevaluate how the Partnership is working (or not). Instead of fillingout a standard questionaire, perhaps its better to find a morecreative and intuitive way to adress this point. For example, make akind of game out of this – a multiple choice questionaire perhaps? Also, we imagine our screenprintworks to represent and describe some of our collected experiences.

Future Plans:

Czentrifuga has initiated working on acollective screenprint magazine / manual “Cosmic Hospital”. Asthe idea develops and pages are prepared all Partners will have achance to join in the process either at meetings, via internet orthrough smaller group travels and interactions over the next months.Divo Mark suggested the idea to buy a large tent in which we cancollectively present the partnership through exhibition, music andperformance. Its essential to seek to make exchanges with localpublic and present our achievements to the public (sharing ourknowledge and skills) and something like a large tent could be used asa platform to present what we do and include interested local people, groups and organisations.
Of course we are still in the process of reaching a commonunderstanding between Partners, but its good to focus on this pointnow for when we make future activities. The idea to use the industrial metal container we spotted on the Stubnitz for this purpose would require morefunding so we decided to keep that idea as a seperate issue forlater.

Next Meeting(s) 2011

May 7 Kolin /Czech Republic, hosted byDivo.

July 18 Gizycko/Poland.hosted byStowarzyszenie Wspolnota Mazurska,

Autumn 2011: As Košice / Slovakia with the possibility to make a stop en route at Zilina where itspossible to meet an interesting local D.I.Y styled organisation("Stanica-Zarecie" – www.stanica.sk).Košice is an interesting location as, like two of our Partners,Giżycko and Dublin, its near to the EU Border. This area isparticularly interesting as there is a large Roma population, and onegets a feeling of being out of time or in a different world...

Events:

There was a lot of music andperformance over these “Manifesto” days . The production of a live event helps givea basis and form to the Grundtvig meetings and promote chances for immediate "zusammenarbeit".The Stubnitz ship can hold around 700 people and has four areas inwhich to make events. The Stubnitz crewdocumented the events as usual and the Slam organisation and theirinvited guests were busy with their own documentaion - thecomic and brutal truth behind a new partnership in the process of finding an identity! The 14 minute film was later presented at the next meeting in Kolin and nowhere in this blog!

7+8 Januar 2011 "Grundtwig D.I.Y.Manifesto" Programme:

Exhibition: Palo Cejka (SLO) linoleumcut prints & Czentrifuga screenprint exhibition

7.01

The Family Waraksa Band (PL) folk rock

KOMO (Bavaria)

Bruce Lee & Masha (SK/PL) hip hop +slam poetry/rap

DJ Reverend (SK) eclectic style

Stubnitz Sealectors (Y4HK) ships crewdjs

8.01

Czentrifuga All Stars (Berlin)-performance live printing, music and costume featuring

Gogo Trash, Fake Mistress, Beat me X,Gabba Reifenstihl,Damien Tran, Coost Lardy Cake & members of thepublic .

Fake & Reifenstihl - experimentalnoise and loops performance

Ed n Ed n Piper - punk jazz

Grundtvigians Jam Band (open stage ,open mic.)

Yximallo (JAPAN) - strange soundworld
Lydia Lunch & Philippe Petit (USA/FRA) - performance :"Twist of Fate"

International Rave Up!

Djs-Destooy A.K.A. Dubdub (Japan), Yaya 23 (Cyberrise/Berlin),

Rumplesteel (A.P.A. /Berlin)

Live Sets :D.D.R. a.k.a. Triphazard(Stay Up Forever Recs./UK) Olive (France)
Teknoseeker (Italy).

HOWDY PARTNER!

2011-12-02T07:45:00.001-08:00

Thefirst kick off meeting for our “Do It Yourself! - Self Empowerment Through Skill Sharing” learning partnership took place at Czentrifugas homebase inKreuzberg Berlin on the 23rd and 24th September 2010. Nine of the ten partners (roughly 30 people) managed to attend.

Generally, the most productive talks were off-record, ranging from informal to intense ,and held within smaller ad hoc groups throughout the two days. Thefundamental points were, however, adressed collectively within onemain meeting, later to be summarised in a protocol which was latermailed to each of the ten partners . As most of the partners weremeeting each other for the first time, each partner explained alittle about their respective organisations.

Themain language spoken in the meeting was English which was by nomeans a perfect solution but the main points were eventually translated and disseminated amongst the participants (for example forthe Polish and Czech people attending, it was no problem for themto communicate amongst themselves in their native languages as theyare quite similiar)

Thefundamental points of order were adressed in this meeting,such as thefact that the Grundtvig organisation requires a documented evaluation from each of its projects. Stephan Kruhl, representingKulturpark 3000 and also the partnerships Grundtvig applicationadvisor commented that during the forthcoming two years , one aimof the partnership should be to find a way to do an evaluationthat is appropriate and fitting to the nature of the partnership.An evaluation form is suggested as it is easy way to get feedbackand establish a project overview, giving the partners the possibilityto comment on different subjects and help to prepare for upcomingmeetings.

Itwas agreed that there should be a meeting at each partners locationand there was an agreement on three future General meetings-

January2011: MS Stubnitz in either Hamburg or Rostock

May2011: 3 cities link up : Kolin - Brno -Bratislava

July2011: Gyzyzko (Poland) Poetry Festival

Hereare some examples of our collective brainstorming and about how we all imagined the future in terms of mutual cooperation.

Gabba(Czentrifuga) “We should enjoy this partnership, We should use thetime, the funding, the potential of all partners to make an impact –social, artistic. It is an opportunity, it is a pleasure – weshould enjoy it”

Olivia+ Beat (Czentrifuga) “Downsizing our Berlin operation inanticipation of pursuing a more mobile network”

Aaron(MS Stubnitz) - “Each Partner selects one (or more?) artproject(s) (music, video, paint, print, poetry multimediaor..?) which will then visit /tour the other partners'countries”

Stephan(Kulturpark3000) ”We should use the opportunity of thispartnership, the funding and time, to create – according to aimsand objectives of this partnership – follow-up projects and raisenew, additional funding for these projects”

Aaron(MS Stubnitz) “Establish sub groups/blocks - specifically, a "Cash Block" Those in the partnership proficient and/or interested in looking for other forms of funding andsponsorship...Governmental, private, corporate...." Thisprompted the question: What other "Blocks" or "Sub-Groups" can be established?

Coost(Czentrifuga) “How about taking on new partners that we will meeton our travels ? is there a (Grundtwig) procedure for this ?”

Stephan(Kulturpark3000) “It's not possible to integrate new members intoan ongoing partnership – (they would have no chance to get fundingthrough their National agencies )But we may cooperate with anypartner we want to and can integrate those partners into a newlearning partnership in 2012”

Coostsuggested the possibility of linking up with Thierry Jausson who isconnected to the MS Stubnitz and is based in Egypt working withthe North African experimental music scene and is coordinating selected projects to perform and make live production onthe ship.

Nik(Fair Tunes) soon to be travelling to Algeria to set up acommunity based recording studio facility "we would all learn byeverybodys mistakes"

Beat(Czentrifuga) in contrast to inner city, urban culture ,remarked on the "soft power" which is affordedby places such as the remotely situated Gyzyzko onPolands Eastern border ,where nature is an integral part of the localculture.

Coost(Czentrifuga) Our Gyzyzko Partner is already making art/cultural exchanges with Kaliningrad. There are already discussions about relaxing the Polish/Russian border in this regionto allow for communication between the peoples of this area.....Maybeas end-festival we sail the MS Stubnitz to Kaliningrad for2012?

Antoin(Archway studios) also mentioned his connection to the Irishcountryside and the possibility of not only visiting Dublin but alsolinking up with remote "soft power" organisation(s) This could be interesting to compare and contrast activities on the extreme Eastern border (Poland) and the extreme West (Ireland)

Wediscussed different ideas about setting up a shared Mobile CultureCenter, something that is transportable , a small container perhapsor even something that fits in a rucksack, or perhaps exists only onthe net. Itwas agreed that Czentrifuga take care of the administration of theLearning Project.Oncethe formalities, protocol and hand shakes were complete, the partners hadtime to see some of the Berlin sights and witness and participate in the Czentrifuga event the following day.

24:09Czentrifuga @ Mariannenplatz Closing Event

"Es Gibt Kein Zurück"

Thispublic event was to be the last in the Kreuzberg location, it was afitting end to an intensely productive time and from the downsizingof this large project was formed another (Grundtvig D.I.Y.).

Essentially,there were two screenprint exhibtions , a "kunst markt", five live acts, four Djs, three art installations plus a performancefrom Gogo Trash and SP38 whereby the audience were encouraged to participate in an ufo landing ritual . Impressions from the event are summarised in theaccompanying video clip, and also on the Czentrifuga online fotoarchives (thanks to Gabba and also Marko Krojac(who also volunteered to cook for this meeting..yum, yum!)

http://foto.poetaster.de/Grundtvig-D-I-Y

http://foto.obin.org/marko-Krojac-sept-2010?page=1.

RETROACTIVE!

2011-12-02T07:15:00.001-08:00

D.I.Y. Do ItYourself! - Self Empowerment through Skill Sharing

At the beginning of 2010 in Berlin, the Czentrifuga collective, supported by gallerist Stephan Krühl, successfully formed a European alliance of ten partner organisations from six EU Countries. This “Learning Partnership” was (and still is) sponsored by the European Unions' Grundtvig organisation. Just over one year, several hundred emails, cross border incursions and four major trans-European manifestations later , Grundtvig D.I.Y. finally presents itself to the worldwide web watchers in the shape of this blog.

The Partners

Unter Druck Kultur von der Strasse e.V. (including Czentrifuga) / Berlin, Germany

Academia Gustviana Selts (including Non Grata) / Pärnu, Estonia

Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Mazurska / Giżycko, Poland

Motorship Stubnitz e.V. / Rostock, Germany

Kulturpark 3000 / Berlin, Germany

D.I.V.O Institut / Kolin, Czech Republic

Obcanske sdruzeni Fleda / Brno, Czech Republic

Slam / Turany, Slovakia

Archway Studios/ Dublin, Ireland

Fairtunes / London, UK

The Project

Our projectfocuses on art as a social transformer and a tool for sharing knowledge.

Itspartners derive from a wide geographical base reaching across the EU from Eastto West; there are experienced partners and newcomers; partners from the worldsfinancial centre London to the picturesque small town Giżycko in Masuria; partnersworkingat local and international levels; partners specializing in different art andsocial disciplines and partners of all ages.

What unitesus is our common conviction that art should make a social impact. We want toexplore art as a learning experience, a tool and pathway for innovativeinterventions in social issues and social developments.

Art is anefficient way for the articulation and representation of minority cultures andmarginalized social groups aiming at enhancing the opportunities forparticipation and action.

Artcommunication is understood as a means of bridging a gap – as mediation, notreduced to a restricted identity, but resulting from the combination of local,transnational, international and cultural aspects.

Art crossesall boundaries both between the familiar and the unknown and between theestablished and the innovative.

Our visionis to mobilise/activate local talent and interested members of the community ofall ages to realize their potential. We want to provide the opportunity andframework for individuals to learn new skillsets and empower participants from disadvantagedbackgrounds to set up their own self-sustaining networks of reciprocal teachingand learning, thus enabling people through creative means to communicate and sharetheir interests and needs within the community and with decision makers on differentlevels.

By sharingdiverse experiences, working practises and social-cultural backgrounds this Learningpartnership creates, through its wide variety, an opportunity to establish aneffective intercultural blueprint for this vision.

Looking back over the last year, it's clear that our initial vision was idealistic and our understanding of the complexity of an international partnership and how it subsequently evolves was somewhat naïve. It's the difference between disseminating an idea (and acting upon it) between 10 people in your local area or communicating within a network which spans three thousand miles, five languages and comprises more than a hundred core people. Now, after a collapsed attempt at creating a cohesive website, we hope to indicate how the partnership has developed over the last year via video clips, short texts and links. Here then is a sort of a scrap book archiving the essence of one year of learning by doing and skill sharing activities.

Czentrifuga/Berlin Autumn 2011