European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010

The Sproutbau Project was chosen to represent Bremen at the European Capital of Culture 2010.

Here is some information in German : -->

Sad News

PHOTO CREDIT: YANNICK RADEKE

We are very sad to learn that Urdrü, the phenomenal annunciator of the Sproutbau Republic, has passed away on October 4th. We remember his generosity, humor and his good natured approach to putting up with our chaotic creativeness during his stay on the Sproutbau grounds. Without him the start of the project wouldn´t have been as passionate and as stimulating. Thank you so much, you will stay in our memories!

We extend our best wishes to his family and friends.

More information (in German) can be found on this ---> blog.

And here is a link to Dan and Trish´s first Sproutbaurecord incorporating Urdrü´s speech.

printed archive of sproutbau goods

Cover front, back and sides.

The book is finally here - well, almost! It will be in stock on January 9th. After 3214 hours of work it turned out really well. You can make people pre-order it via Edition Temmen. Sproutbau participants will receive a notice shortly.

sometimes traces of a past

Underneath a load of old ads suddenly the Betonale poster popped up. Seen today, Sunday the 7th of 2008. Good things just don´t go away :)

sproutmovie

Finally we are able to post a link to Ricardo´s Sproutbau Movie. You can watch it here.

die kleingeldprinzessin im lagerhaus

Die Kleingeldprinzessin im Wehrschloss, Juli 2007
PHOTO CREDIT: DANIEL SCHNIER

Letztes Jahr hatten wir das große Glück, dass die Kleingeldprinzessin (Support Lenasingt und Ich und mein Tiger) großzügigerweise für den Sproutbau ein Soli-Konzert gegeben hat. Der Abend war ein voller Erfolg - und ohne diese finanzielle Starthilfe hätten wir es anfangs wesentlich schwerer gehabt.

Wir freuen uns daher, dass Dota jetzt wieder nach Bremen kommt! Für alle die sie gerne wiedersehen wollen und für alle die sie damals verpasst haben, die Kleingeldprinzessin tritt am Freitag, dem 18.4. um 20.00 Uhr im Lagerhaus auf.

movie screening at kurzschluss

Sproutbau Movie - a film by Ricardo Cedeño Montaña.

During the summer of 2007 the Sproutbau project brought life to an empty multi-storey building doomed for demolition. Artists, architects, visionaries and creative people of all kinds moved into the 110 apartment units to realize their ideas around alternative living, intentional communities and visual arts. When Ricardo Cedeño Montaña heard about the project he decided to follow the work and life of some of the participants with a film camera. This coming weekend the finished movie will be publicly screened for the first time.

Joined by the project team and some active members of the Sproutbau, Ricardo will be present to receive questions - and of course applause. A discussion about the movie, Sproutbau and upcoming projects will be made possible after the screening.

Where: Kurzschluss, Lahnstraße 16, Neustadt
Time: 12.4. um 20.00 Uhr

welcome to earth!

This cute earthling is Friedemann, aka Bärbel. He finally managed to emerge from the safe womb of his mother and is just as friendly as his name suggests. He was born on March 12th at 9.13 PM after a cesarian. Meike is doing well and looks, even after all the stress, just radiant. We congratulate the parents, the grandmothers and grandfathers and the grand grandfather, who came to hospital today to see what 1/8 part is of his.

Both, Meike and Friedemann, need to stay at the hospital for 4 to 6 days. You can go and visit if you like. They are at the Diako, in Gröpelingen.

rubble

ALL PHOTOS BY: PATRICIA LAMBERTUS

Over the weekend of February 16/17th Linda stopped by in Bremen to pick up her paintings. Together we went to see the remains of the Sproutbau. There was little left but a huge field of rubbles, which was especially sad for Linda, as she had hoped to get an idea of what the building looked like and where her paintings were installed.



We climbed over the many stones to the one room that fiercefully kept standing. To our surprise this was also the only room we never could get into while the Sproutbau was still alive and standing.



There were tables and chairs in the secret room. And someone had left a scarf. Now the only thing still unrevealed is whether there existed 7 hidden storage rooms in the basement that were full of collected items. Some rumors just have to live on...

sprout reunion

ALL PHOTOS BY: DANIEL SCHNIER

On Saturday 19th a group of Sproutfarmers gathered to take a look at the rubbles of Sproutbau. It was an eerie sight seing the building have standing, half in debris.



Despite the surrounding fence we could get in easily. The garden and garage were all gone, as well as house 46 and part of house 48.



The have ripped off the white asbesto pannels from the walls, they have etched out the floor tiles. All asbesto crab was collected in huge white plastic bags.



Still you could walk up all the floors. What you see on the photo above is the seventh floor, coming right out of the stairway. To the right is Mr. Dohm´s old apartment, while to the left you see this hole into what has formerly been the café.



A group of us then visited Mr. Dohms in his new apartment. He has settled in now, but believes to be fully ready with everything around Easter. He promised to hold an Easter party. By then all the remains of Sproutbau will have be gone.

last resident out

Sproutbau´s last resident has finally left the broken palace and moved into his new flat. The past month he had spent there without any comfort of hot water and radiation, but with almost nightly visitors roaming the building in search for useful materials. Buten & Binnen had a report on it last Tuesday. You can watch it here. Scroll all the way down!

Also here is a newspaper clip from the Bremer Anzeiger. My favorite part is this little snippet:

He gained new hope through an art project in September . Architects and artists turned his building into the "Sproutbau" so that life was returning. "Those were really great young people", says Dohms. "They should have established a students´hostel way earlier..."

Students´hostel... :) ... oh well... we love you Mr. Dohms! Keep up the spirit!

park(ing) day in bremen

The Sprouts do parking! PARK(ing) day is an international event initiated by Rebar, where public parkings spots are "leased" from the city and transformed into parks. In Bremen a group from the Sproutcrew grabbed Sproutbau leftovers and squeezed it into a car.



We then parked the car Thursday night at Violenstraße, a side road to the big traffic point Domsheide. Our visitor from Denmark, Anders, blocked another parking spot with his graffiti painted (Hippie) Citroen.




PHOTO: PATRICIA LAMBERTUS

Next day we would get up early to feed the parking meter and build the park. The design followed the materials we had. The floor was covered with mulch and grass. Plants and vegetables made good decorations. We brought a parasol in case it would rain and a fancy lawn mower to use as the required vehicle.

Local TV station Buten & Binnen later decided to use this action for their daily weather forecast.


PHOTO: PATRICIA LAMBERTUS

Shunka was brave enough to say the prewritten text into the camera. She and Daniel were also interviewed by the crew of the Public Channel (Offener Kanal).



The event drew positive attention from pedestrians and bike folks. There were no complaints from people searching a parking spot. And there was no interferences from the police. Even the meter maids ignored us intentionally. All in all a friendly, peaceful event.



In the end we gave away plants to people walking by. We cleaned up the space and took home some vegetables. The birdhouse though remains to this very day on top of the traffic light.

the marnic roof

PHOTO: CATHRIN EISENSTEIN

burning down the house...

Taking out the installation.



Even the most attached guests are packing.



Janitor on duty. Where does all this garbage come from? And where is everyone else?



What doesn´t get recycled gets burned.
Some sobbing.

the goats have a new home

It was the deal from the beginning that after Sproutbau Heidi, Ingmar and Mordechai would move on to the Egestorff Stiftung, a home for the elderly, where they have a huge willow and many animals. They now share place with 7 other goats, sheep and bulls.



Ingmar is making new enemies. It looks like he feels at home.



They are all well and healthy - and very missed...

before & after

BEFORE

PHOTO: DANIEL SCHNIER

AFTER


&
BEFORE


AFTER


&
BEFORE

PHOTO: CATRHIN EISENSTEIN

AFTER

PHOTO: CATRHIN EISENSTEIN

walk through art

PHOTO: DANIEL SCHNIER

In Buffalo, New York, Linda Anderson has been painting on a huge walk through installation for the pillars of Sproutbau. She mailed the wrapped paintings in time: but it took a fierceful (and charming) Mia U. to claim them from custom, where they originally intended a delivery right after the Betonale. When we unwrapped the paintings they still carried the smell of fresh acrylics/oil.


PHOTO: DANIEL SCHNIER

It was an adventure to hang them. Linda had sent us instructions that were perfect: but what she couldn´t have taken into account was the heavy wind, the rain, the fresh graffiti. All forces that made it difficult to stick to the plan.


PHOTO: DANIEL SCHNIER

We then changed the settings and put the paintings up in an order we thought still gave them a vibrant look and where they wouldn´t be food for mean weather.


PHOTO: DANIEL SCHNIER

In the end it was a great success. People would curiously stop and examine the exterior gallery. We were afraid the paintings would get damaged but they were treated respectfully and with awe. Especially children liked to race through the art and cheered the look of the brightful colors.

white flat

A flat in all shades of white. An inhabitant who hardly ever talks. Where she comes from, nobody knows.



She starts cleaning, a thorough removal of all traces, strict and determined. Everything gets covered with a layer of paint – floor, table, books, pictures, walls – everything. Is this a way to get rid off memories? What you cannot see does not exist. She paints towards the state of purest white and innocence. A story about the attempt of forgetting.





White to the very last detail: She drinks milk, water, white wine. She eats pasta, rice, white bread, cream cheese, asparges. She wears a white skirt, white blouse, white socks and white shoes. (Only her lipstick is of a bright red.)





She doesn’t like people. Hardly ever she tries to socialize; usually she prefers to retire to the white silence of her flat.






Notes from her diary / reactions of guests

number 12 giggled
number 13 said cold piece of art
number 14 closed the door
then the door opened again by itself.
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number 24 asked questions.
number 25 left footsteps behind.
number 26 saw different colours of white.
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number 30 ate tictac
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the first guest of the evening became silent and said thank you
a young man sniffed at the lily
a tall blonde man marches by and says AHA
a man completely out of breath says he doesn’t have time and keeps on running
a girl in a hoodie says you look cool –
she doesn’t lift her feet when she walks.
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an old man carries along a spade.
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the returning guest eats unboiled rice and talks about growing old.


The White Flat is an inhabited installation by Frauke Materlik.

sophies garten

PHOTOS: PATRICIA LAMBERTUS

Patricia Lambertus site-specific installation "Sohies Garten" is a world grown from wallpaper, inhabitating a swanlake, a palace garden and a meadow.





The motives were inspired by wallpaper found in the apartment. Several other wallpapers from Sproutbau and elsewhere completed the energetic montage. Here the wall fabrics of former residents come together to form the garden of an imaginative person. You set your foot in like into a delicate dip and spend a visual fest in patterns, structures, colors and shades.