Activity & Installation on the „Hasenweg” by Joachim Eckl

Within the study days „Der Begriff der Kunst und seine Erweiterung durch Joseph Beuys“ by Karl-Heinz Tritschler

Organized by „Studientage Soziale Skulptur II“ der Humboldt-Haus Achberg GbR

13th of March – 16th of March 2008
Achberg

The association for promoting the expanded concept of art and social sculpture organizes the study days “Social sculpture” in the Humboldt Haus in Achberg/Germany. Within this event Joachim Eckl built a “Life-impulse-remembrance-plant” on the Hasenweg.

Objects people wanted to get rid of, material and ideally dimensions, form and nature, potatoes and stones, reminding thinking and joint contemplation were the connecting aspects in this performance. Their realization is based essentially on the spirit of acting jointly. 12 (+4) inspired people were the contributing participants.

First, the objects that people had brought along were encircled and then wrapped in linen and connected with string. This is how the objects could now be remembered and disconnected from their function. They are only present as beings of pure form, the separation is being prepared. After that people chose a potato (a medieval term for globe, “apple of the earth” in German) and grasped it as a model of the earth, with spots like eyes where the shoots strive for the light. The construction of the plant on the “Hasenweg” could begin. Based on the model of the potatoes, stones were collected. The stones that had been found by the participants are now foundlings and originated from the opposite process of formation (from the outside by grinding). They are twin-forms of the potatoes (from the inside by growing).  
The centre of the plant was being encircled by a ring of 12 stones. The potatoes were planted in the centre of the disk that had been created by the participants. In the vicinity of the stones nests of earth were created for the connected objects. After all objects were earthed and implanted a radial connection of strings between the ring-stones and the objects was made. Then the whole plant, the nests of earth of the foundlings and the objects as well as the furrows of connection were filled with earth and covered with leaves. Now the plant works on the spot and lives in the remembrance of the people who produced their ideas and contributed in a formative way.

Further pictures