July 15th - August10, 2012 at TRA.FO, Kassel / BLOG /
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Ten years ago Karsten Winnemuth started a do-nothing garden project around the old electric station placed in the public but church owned park on Luther Platz in the center of Kassel. Garden was a try-out of the Fukuoka and permaculture methods. At the same time, Karsten converted the tiny electric station and its surrounding into a playground for various art interventions and a rehearsal studio for the musical improvisations of his band.
The do-nothing garden, originally planted with a diversity of plants and vegetables, rapidly attracted less domesticated species such as nettles. At the same time, the charming and cosy part Kassel developed by Karsten started attracting a human diversity that included humanity's more or less "domesticated" representatives. In the course of time the idea of do-nothing gardening had grown and extended to other neighborhoods. This tendency involved lots of inhabitants, building up community gardens as well as spotting and collecting edible fruits and plants in the urban area. This project took up the name Edible City. In the meantime, TRA.FO, the nucleus of all the Edible Cities project also became a safe-ground and meeting point to all kind of people without a home mostly addicted to alcohol or drugs. This situation was particularly emphasized when a couple of years ago the city council drew a new regulation regarding cleaning up the streets of those kind of groupings. Nowadays TRA.FO unfolds the most inspirational and challenging situation and process one could dare to imagine. In such an atmosphere of extreme diversity tabooed distinctions and frontiers get blurred and drowned in the unpredictable rhythm of free flow musical improvisation. A free stage is open for everybody to intervene, play, sing or recite without scores or rhymes but in accordance to their impulses of the moment. Following this pace our 'Documentary Embroidery' was taking place during the days of our visit in TRA.FO. First we asked people to embroider things that they hate or are disgusted by on the edges of the big fabric, but soon enough, the rules loosened allowing any kind of improvisation with thread and needle that would simply document that particular moment of that time. |
 Trafo street side |
 Trafo front window |
 Trafo band playing |
 Trafo do nothing garden |
 Trafo band playing |
 Schnaps bottles |
 Park graveyard |
 Drug victims memorial |
 Trafo embroidery first day |
 Trafo people |
 Trafo people |
 Trafo play with fabric |
 Trafo play with fabric |
 Trafo embroidery crew |
 Trafo embroidery threads |
 Trafo embroidery crew |
 Trafo embroidery crew |
 Trafo displaying tapestry |
 Trafo tapestry |
 Trafo still embroidering |
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