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Driveway Transit Exit. Alltag im Labyrinth
Michael Hieslmair/ Michael Zinganel Tankstellen-Urbanismus Der Fokus der Arbeit lag daher zuerst auf der Raststätte Wattenscheid als transnationalem Kreuzungspunkt, an dem Haltepunkt sich anhand von ausgewählten Akteuren und den von ihnen zurückgelegten Wege Rückschlüsse auf globale Transformationsprozesse und den regionalen Strukturwandel ziehen lassen. Internationale Kleingarten-Gemeinschaft Platzwechsel Standort Parkplatz der Raststätte Die 8 Wege laufen auf einen gemeinsamen Kreuzungspunkt zu, der mit 8 Hochbeeten einen fiktiven Ausschnitt der Kleingartenanlage markiert. Im Bereich der Hochbeete knicken die Wege rechtwinkelig nach oben, so dass sie gemeinsam die Umriss-Linie einer archetypischen Hausform bilden, in die die Nationalflaggen der Herkunftsnationen eingehängt sind. Jedes Hochbeet ist einem Akteur zugeordnet, dieses wird in Absprache entsprechend seiner/ihrer Vorlieben bepflanzt. Gleichzeitig ist in jedes Hochbeet ein Lautsprecher eingebaut. An diesen Hörstationen können die Besucher vor Sonneneinstrahlung geschützt auf den Holzrosten Platz nehmen und den von NachrichtensprecherInnen wie Verkehrsmeldungen gesprochenen Audiospuren von individuellen Migrationsgeschichten zuhören. Tonspuren – Wegenetz am Parkplatz der Raststätte
Standort Kleingartenanlage Die Wege bestehen aus blanken Aluminiumrohren, die sich teils gebogen entlang von Zäunen, Gartenlauben, durch Hecken, usw. schlängeln. Am Ende der Wege sind die Herkunfts- und Zieldestinationen der Akteure in Form von Schriftzügen angebracht. Tonspuren – Wegenetz in der Kleingartenanlage
Geöffnet ab Samstag, 12. Juni 2010 ab 14 Uhr (mit Grill) Künstlerführung: Sonntag, 13. Juni um 11 Uhr Navigationshilfen zur Anfahrt: Anfahrt Bundesstrasse aus Bochum oder Wattenscheid: Bochumerstrasse, Abzweigung Vietingstraße mit Öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln: Kuratiert von MAP, Markus Ambach Projekte Dank an: Familie Eggers und das Personal der Shell-Station, Rob, Werner, Antonio, Danuta, Richard und die Kleingärtner des Kleingartenvereins „Am Dückerweg“ e.V. Fotos: Hieslmair/ Zinganel
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The A40 is not only an imporant feeder road for local commuters, suppliers, and service technicians in the Ruhr Area, but also serves as a major east-west route for international long-distance traffic between Ukraine and ports in Belgium and the Netherlands. To many truck drivers and commuters, the Shell station on the A40 is not merely a petrol station, but also a place of work, a night stopover, a social meeting point, and a local supply center. The allotment sites adjacent to the service area likewise, have a surprisingly international atmosphere. Behind the noise barrier, one can for instance meet retired first-generation immigrant workers who have finally managed to buy a German garden plot, or younger immigrants who have married into a family with an allotment. Their individual itineraries, which extend as far as the international merchandise traffic beyond the wall, thus reflect something of German migratory history. CHANGE OF PLACE As a result observations and interviews with people linked to the station and the allotment gardens, two threedimensional route networks and audio Installations have been developed. They have, however, been positioned at opposite locations, respectively, thus juxtaposing the idyllic privacy and intimacy of the allotments with the stress and noise of the tansport route. Two zones that are, so to speak, simultaneously separated and connected by a "magical" gate in the noise barrier. AN INTERNATIONAL ALLOTMENT COMMUNITY AT THE AUTOBAHN SERVICE AREA On the parking lot of the Shell station on the A40, the transport routes of the allotment gardeners are reenacted: each of the eight protagonists is allocated an abstract "trail“, which leads from the starting point of his or her journey to the allotment. The eight routes – suspended wooden beams on which the names of the respective places of origin are mounted – converge upon a common point of intersection. In this fictional extract of the allotment gardens, whIch is covered by a fabric patchwork fashioned from the national flags of the countries of origin, loudspeakers built into eight raised flower beds retell the tales of the protagonist's individual journeys. Here, for example, visitors can listen to seventy-two-year-old Lailani's experiences of migration. In 1970 at the age of thirty-two, Lailani came to Germany from Manila as part of a recruitment drive for nurses and nursing staff. Or Miguel, aged sixty-four, who was recruited in 1971 as an immigrant worker (Gastarbeiter) in Spain, then still under the dictatorship of Franco; of Ayse, aged sixty-three, who accompanied her husband, a Turkish immigrant worker, to Germany in 1972; of Dunja, aged fifty-two, who arrived from Banja Luka in 1979; of Jamal, aged thirty-six, who, along with his mother and his siblings, joined his father in Germany when he was twelve years old; or of Bozena, aged forty-two, who came from Silesia in 1989 on a tourist visa at the age of twenty-one and decided to stay. The visitor can also learn about the ways in which the immigrants have finally secured their own small allotment plot. PETROL STATION URBANISM IN THE ALLOTMENT GARDENS In the allotment gardens Am Dückerweg e.V. beyond the noise barrier, a network of the routes of representative "regulars“, who frequent the Shell station on the A40 is displayed. The installatIon is located along an internal access path, which runs parallel to the highway. The petrol station forms the central junction from which seven routes of selected professional drivers and commuters radiate, reflecting their geographical itineraries on and beyond the A40. Here, the route network consists of twisted aluminium pipes; the individual narratives are relayed via headsets. Visitors can listen to a newsreader narrating, in a factual manner, the respective daily itineraries: Anne E., thirty-four, the station leaseholder; of Werner H., forty-three, who commutes to Düsseldorf every day, and who, Iike many others quickly gulps down a coffee at the service area before being absorbed into the early-morning traffic; Heinrich F., fifty-two, who meets his colleagues at the station every lunchtime after having distributed meat and sausages produced at the Essen slaughterhouse; Ronny P., thirty-four, a mechanic from Leipzig who stops at the station in the afternoon several times a week, in order to take a shower, do his paperwork and spend the night in his bus. Or the stories of Jan P., forty-six, who drives Opel Zafiras from the Bochum works near Dortmund to the Zeebrugge seaport in Belgium; of Kryztof W., fifty-one, a Polish van driver; or of Wanja K., thirty-nine, a truck driver from the Ukraine, who spends his weekends at the station – and who, in some istances is stuck at the service area for days while waiting for a new cargo to arrive. Formally, the suspended route networks were modeled on the megaconstructions looming above, or even penetrating the cities, which were popularized by the urban utopias of the nineteen-sixties (Friedman, Constant, etc.). Here, however, the networks do not rellect „psycho-geographical“ migrations or visions or utopias or exceptional social conditions, but rather simply portray the everyday life of the workforce in major service sectors: the system of heating-pipes spread across the allotment gardens, like a rhizome, represents a section not only of the technical, but above all of the social inlrastructure of the Ruhr Area and the whole of Europe, where uncountable people from migrant backgrounds – or those with extremely long distances to be covered – go about their business. The sculptur at the petrol station is, for one, simply a seat to be used by travelers on the highway; at the same time however, it is a spatially displaced symbol of an allotment area, whose users are commonly suspected of a certain „immobillty". But here, too, new communities and transnational networks interconnecting local residents and immigrants are emerging. When the exhibition has ended, the building materials used for the installations will be handed over to the allotment gardeners for reuse: for example, the aluminium pipes make for excellent beanpoles and trestles for espalier fruit; the brightly painted wooden beams will be used for renovating and extending the garden sheds, and the signs on which the names of the gardeners' places of origin are written will be used for decoration. From tha very first day, the gardeners inquired about what would eventually become of „Banja Luka" and all the other signs. Our gratitude to the Egger family and the staff of the Shell station, Rob, Werner, Antonio, Danuta, Richard and the gardeners of the allotment association Am Dückerweg e.V. Russian-language research: Anna Olshevska; Installation: Christian Forsen, Benjamin Hofmann, Lee Taylor; Narrators/ Audio Editing: SoIveig Bader, Olal Biernat, Stefan Leiwen |