Volcanoes, Triangles, and Other Energy Fields
TANJA DÜCKERS
I’ve known Valeska Peschke for a long time. Among other things, we both held scholarships at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. Her artistic development is exciting to follow because her work is so multifaceted that I find it satisfying, both intellectually and at a sensory level. In recent years I’ve been particularly interested in her works on the complex topic of Europe. Maybe that’s because unlike so many other artists, Valeska Peschke has really found her own formal idiom here instead of just jumping on the oh-so-fashionable prize-hunting political art bandwagon.
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Valeska Peschke is working with positive concepts of Europe. It goes without saying that this is not going to land her a major art prize in the current climate. But one of her works — the colors of the f lags of all Europe’s nations “f lowing
into one” — does at least grace the cover of the non-fiction book Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss! Eine politische Utopie [Why Europe Must Become a Republic! A Political Utopia] by political theorist Ulrike Guérot, who in recent
years has joined Robert Menasse in campaigning to fundamentally reform the
EU, yet without wanting to destroy Europe itself.
Valeska Peschke’s Vulkan Inside Out / Volcano Inside Out, (2016–17), is a brightly colored volcano, a mountain made of printed fabric that is installed in public space, for example in front of the Danube University Krems. This fusion at the level of coloration creates astonishing new correspondences and color combinations that are reminiscent of African f lags. In any case, there is something new on the horizon, and this Europe is neither old nor hopeless. Before creating this whole-room installation, Peschke worked with the idea of
“volcanoes” in Berlin, taking the new and unique approach of placing geology and history in a purportedly causal relationship to each other. She designed fictional maps of the geological, tectonic collision between East and West that manifested itself as the Berlin Wall. On maps, photos, and models, Peschke had houses “sink” into landscapes of mountain ranges and construction sites. The resulting “spillages” and “offshoots” can still be traced today, pointing to the wider context of these local historical-tectonic shifts.
In Valeska Peschke’s words: “We have to see Europe as a volcano, as the friction between continental plates and the different cultures that lie on top of them. Chaos, uncertainty, an element of rawness and friction are an essential part of
art and creativity.” In the artist’s opinion, this incredible diversity and any attendant problems certainly represent an opportunity – a wealth of energy that is not solely cause for complaint.
In her performance Das Kleid der Europa / The Dress of Europe, (2017), she again worked with fabric (this time golden, woven from red and green thread) and again we encounter her conceptual map. Here she steps out of the map of the imagined European community in 1589 and into the realm of opportunity that is digital networking in 2017.
Yet Valeska Peschke conjures up her utopia of a transnational Europe above all in her ambitious and wide-reaching work Die Botschaft von Amikejo / The Mission of Amikejo, which deals with a tiny, stateless piece of land called Amikejo or Neutral Moresnet. Measuring around three-and-a-half square kilometers in size, Amikejo was once located southwest of Aachen. Peschke began the project by conducting intensive research into the history of this curious little region, for which neither Prussia nor the Netherlands was prepared to go to war. Today the area, situated on the borders between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany is called the Dreiländereck or “tripoint.”
Most exhibition visitors looking at Valeska Peschke’s series of works on Amikejo will also be discovering for the first time that such a place even existed in Europe — and in an even more nationalist epoch than the present day. How else would
they know that an “Esperanto Republic” was declared here in 1908, on this neutral island in the increasingly militarized Europe (Amikejo is Esperanto for “place of friendship”)? But instead of using longwinded political digressions to inform her audience, Peschke has developed a unique abstract formal idiom that speaks for itself. The term Botschaft in German means both an embassy or diplomatic mission and a message.
As Peschke says: “That’s why I chose Amikejo: pre-, proto-, post-, and super-European in the best sense, a space beyond nationalism, a space to breathe, an open horizon, a utopia. That’s the mission / message of Amikejo.”
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Berlin/ Belgrade 2018/2019
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Valeska Peschke is working with positive concepts of Europe. It goes without saying that this is not going to land her a major art prize in the current climate. But one of her works — the colors of the f lags of all Europe’s nations “f lowing
into one” — does at least grace the cover of the non-fiction book Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss! Eine politische Utopie [Why Europe Must Become a Republic! A Political Utopia] by political theorist Ulrike Guérot, who in recent
years has joined Robert Menasse in campaigning to fundamentally reform the
EU, yet without wanting to destroy Europe itself.
Valeska Peschke’s Vulkan Inside Out / Volcano Inside Out, (2016–17), is a brightly colored volcano, a mountain made of printed fabric that is installed in public space, for example in front of the Danube University Krems. This fusion at the level of coloration creates astonishing new correspondences and color combinations that are reminiscent of African f lags. In any case, there is something new on the horizon, and this Europe is neither old nor hopeless. Before creating this whole-room installation, Peschke worked with the idea of
“volcanoes” in Berlin, taking the new and unique approach of placing geology and history in a purportedly causal relationship to each other. She designed fictional maps of the geological, tectonic collision between East and West that manifested itself as the Berlin Wall. On maps, photos, and models, Peschke had houses “sink” into landscapes of mountain ranges and construction sites. The resulting “spillages” and “offshoots” can still be traced today, pointing to the wider context of these local historical-tectonic shifts.
In Valeska Peschke’s words: “We have to see Europe as a volcano, as the friction between continental plates and the different cultures that lie on top of them. Chaos, uncertainty, an element of rawness and friction are an essential part of
art and creativity.” In the artist’s opinion, this incredible diversity and any attendant problems certainly represent an opportunity – a wealth of energy that is not solely cause for complaint.
In her performance Das Kleid der Europa / The Dress of Europe, (2017), she again worked with fabric (this time golden, woven from red and green thread) and again we encounter her conceptual map. Here she steps out of the map of the imagined European community in 1589 and into the realm of opportunity that is digital networking in 2017.
Yet Valeska Peschke conjures up her utopia of a transnational Europe above all in her ambitious and wide-reaching work Die Botschaft von Amikejo / The Mission of Amikejo, which deals with a tiny, stateless piece of land called Amikejo or Neutral Moresnet. Measuring around three-and-a-half square kilometers in size, Amikejo was once located southwest of Aachen. Peschke began the project by conducting intensive research into the history of this curious little region, for which neither Prussia nor the Netherlands was prepared to go to war. Today the area, situated on the borders between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany is called the Dreiländereck or “tripoint.”
Most exhibition visitors looking at Valeska Peschke’s series of works on Amikejo will also be discovering for the first time that such a place even existed in Europe — and in an even more nationalist epoch than the present day. How else would
they know that an “Esperanto Republic” was declared here in 1908, on this neutral island in the increasingly militarized Europe (Amikejo is Esperanto for “place of friendship”)? But instead of using longwinded political digressions to inform her audience, Peschke has developed a unique abstract formal idiom that speaks for itself. The term Botschaft in German means both an embassy or diplomatic mission and a message.
As Peschke says: “That’s why I chose Amikejo: pre-, proto-, post-, and super-European in the best sense, a space beyond nationalism, a space to breathe, an open horizon, a utopia. That’s the mission / message of Amikejo.”
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Berlin/ Belgrade 2018/2019
Plug and Play. The instant home strategy of Valeska Peschke
Text by CHRISTOPH DOSWALD
What is a house made of ? This question has been haunting architects since the beginning of modernism at the start of the century, since the industrialization of the product industry and since the invention of the social housing generation.
Theoretically, the answer is easy: a roof, four walls, a door, and a window. Despite postmodernism and deconstructivism, the fascination with inexpensive archi- tecture still proves unbroken. The dream of having one’s own home is still passionately dreamt. Owning a home is the fantasmic focus of the middle class; it represents well being, security, and success!– and despite this, or perhaps because of this, it becomes the “main source of middle class misery.”1 The pre-fabricated building estabished itself as the ideal form of the private home. It is not only propagated by building societies all over the country, but is preferred by many small home builders!– what you see is what you get: and that is, the smallest common denominator of human housing.
The Berlin artist, Valeska Peschke created her first “pre-fab” three years ago. However, her proposal can only be compared structurally with its modernist
predecessors!– consists of a roof, four walls, a door!– and a window opening. In addition, the dwelling Plug in!– Plug out: Instant Home (1998), comprises a contemporary item of furniture that was not foreseen by modernists around Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe or Le Corbusier: the television. The artist has also adapted the “building material” to the zeitgeist.
Instead of the all-round loved cements and steels (able to be shaped in any way and easy to transport), she decided on an even more simulative material2: air and plastic. The vision of a mobile home was created as a pendant to the mobile man!– inflatable, easy to set up and take down, transportable. Instant Home fits into the average packing carton!– those that are usually used to move house. Instead of using the cartons to pack up the software (books, clothing, kitchen utensils) the artist uses them to transport the hardware, in other words, she brings the entire house, including its contents in the box. Made of a vinyl case, the Instant Home fits all the qualifications of a mobile society: there is a sofa, a lamp, a coffee table, a chimney, and a television!– and it can be put into service within two minutes.
Peschke’s project is not just a new sculptural genre, made for a museum. On the contrary: Instant Home was conceived as a site-specific piece, as a sculpture for public space, as an installation which brings 12 square meters of private space
into the public realm. In this way, Peschke defines the public site in the broadest way!– wherever there has previously been no privacy!– and has traveled with her Instant Home through California, setting it up in front of steel and glass office buildings, visited forgotten nature landscapes or placed the airbag house in good, upright American suburbs. On the one hand, this artistic strategy possesses a thoroughly playful attitude: Instant Home brings to mind the chill-out rooms of the feel-good generation. On the other, it refers to a borderless mobility and social neglect, a relation that manifests itself noticeably in capitalistic metropolises by the cardboard box dwellings set up by the large homeless population. Peschke conceived a new version af her Instant Home for Dresden. The inflatable object first seems like a minimalist sculpture, then a dwelling!– only the title and the technique (Instant Modernism) points to its predecessor. If you place this gleaming white and ref lective object more exactly under the microscope, other commonalities show up which go beyond the verbal genealogy. Instant Modernism also contains all the architectural features of a house, just like its predecessor: walls, two openings (door and window), a roof. While the first version maintains an introspective character!– the interior furnishings are designed for intimacy, well being and protection!– Instant Modernism functions more towards the outside. At different sites throughout the city: it should, according to the artist “ref lect the surrounding landscape which can be enjoyed by the visitor in a comfortable sitting or reclining position.”3 ln this way, the “pneu-modernism” like Instant Home revives the classical function of the bellevue. The classical and romantic periods invented bellevue architecture: thereby demonstrating a triumph of civilization over nature or satisfying a longing for it. Yet, Peschke’s inflatable temple (noticeable by its installed columns in its interior) focuses on the aesthetic of the urban dweller and reveals contemporary perspectives which, now as then, often remain hidden from the notoriously romanticizing city dweller.
1 Pierre Bourdieu a.o., Der Einzige und sein Eigenheim, VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1998, p. 17.
2 Christoph Doswald, Airbag Generation (Extended Version): Das au!blasbare Objekt als
Simulakrum, in: AIRAIR Catalog Forum Grimaldi, Monaco 2000.
3 Valeska Peschke in a fax to the author, June 11, 2000.
Theoretically, the answer is easy: a roof, four walls, a door, and a window. Despite postmodernism and deconstructivism, the fascination with inexpensive archi- tecture still proves unbroken. The dream of having one’s own home is still passionately dreamt. Owning a home is the fantasmic focus of the middle class; it represents well being, security, and success!– and despite this, or perhaps because of this, it becomes the “main source of middle class misery.”1 The pre-fabricated building estabished itself as the ideal form of the private home. It is not only propagated by building societies all over the country, but is preferred by many small home builders!– what you see is what you get: and that is, the smallest common denominator of human housing.
The Berlin artist, Valeska Peschke created her first “pre-fab” three years ago. However, her proposal can only be compared structurally with its modernist
predecessors!– consists of a roof, four walls, a door!– and a window opening. In addition, the dwelling Plug in!– Plug out: Instant Home (1998), comprises a contemporary item of furniture that was not foreseen by modernists around Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe or Le Corbusier: the television. The artist has also adapted the “building material” to the zeitgeist.
Instead of the all-round loved cements and steels (able to be shaped in any way and easy to transport), she decided on an even more simulative material2: air and plastic. The vision of a mobile home was created as a pendant to the mobile man!– inflatable, easy to set up and take down, transportable. Instant Home fits into the average packing carton!– those that are usually used to move house. Instead of using the cartons to pack up the software (books, clothing, kitchen utensils) the artist uses them to transport the hardware, in other words, she brings the entire house, including its contents in the box. Made of a vinyl case, the Instant Home fits all the qualifications of a mobile society: there is a sofa, a lamp, a coffee table, a chimney, and a television!– and it can be put into service within two minutes.
Peschke’s project is not just a new sculptural genre, made for a museum. On the contrary: Instant Home was conceived as a site-specific piece, as a sculpture for public space, as an installation which brings 12 square meters of private space
into the public realm. In this way, Peschke defines the public site in the broadest way!– wherever there has previously been no privacy!– and has traveled with her Instant Home through California, setting it up in front of steel and glass office buildings, visited forgotten nature landscapes or placed the airbag house in good, upright American suburbs. On the one hand, this artistic strategy possesses a thoroughly playful attitude: Instant Home brings to mind the chill-out rooms of the feel-good generation. On the other, it refers to a borderless mobility and social neglect, a relation that manifests itself noticeably in capitalistic metropolises by the cardboard box dwellings set up by the large homeless population. Peschke conceived a new version af her Instant Home for Dresden. The inflatable object first seems like a minimalist sculpture, then a dwelling!– only the title and the technique (Instant Modernism) points to its predecessor. If you place this gleaming white and ref lective object more exactly under the microscope, other commonalities show up which go beyond the verbal genealogy. Instant Modernism also contains all the architectural features of a house, just like its predecessor: walls, two openings (door and window), a roof. While the first version maintains an introspective character!– the interior furnishings are designed for intimacy, well being and protection!– Instant Modernism functions more towards the outside. At different sites throughout the city: it should, according to the artist “ref lect the surrounding landscape which can be enjoyed by the visitor in a comfortable sitting or reclining position.”3 ln this way, the “pneu-modernism” like Instant Home revives the classical function of the bellevue. The classical and romantic periods invented bellevue architecture: thereby demonstrating a triumph of civilization over nature or satisfying a longing for it. Yet, Peschke’s inflatable temple (noticeable by its installed columns in its interior) focuses on the aesthetic of the urban dweller and reveals contemporary perspectives which, now as then, often remain hidden from the notoriously romanticizing city dweller.
1 Pierre Bourdieu a.o., Der Einzige und sein Eigenheim, VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1998, p. 17.
2 Christoph Doswald, Airbag Generation (Extended Version): Das au!blasbare Objekt als
Simulakrum, in: AIRAIR Catalog Forum Grimaldi, Monaco 2000.
3 Valeska Peschke in a fax to the author, June 11, 2000.
The European Volcano Erupts
Valeska Peschke in conversation with Heidemarie Weinhäupl
For this project, conceptual artist Valeska Peschke is developing works on the Krems region within the context of a Europe conceived as open space. The project The Mission of Amikejo⎯a word which in Esperanto means “place of friendship”⎯refers to a small neutral area situated between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, which proclaimed itself the independent republic of Amikejo in 1907.
“The diplomatic mission of Amikejo is therefore the enthusiasm for a republic which is connected in a larger sense with a free Europe based on togetherness,” explains Valeska Peschke. The image of the European volcano, which is also going to be built as a whole-room installation on the campus of Danube University Krems, will also enable her to point to alternative ways of thinking about homeland, territory, and borders. “As the earth’s respiratory system they also refer to a global perspective rather than a national one: you can see through the volcano into the vent, into the earth⎯and maybe you can think differently there in the center. You can see that the territories are relatively limited in their conception, that we have to think about borders differently. Volcanoes stand for destruction or radical change, but also for fertile ash, which can rebuild something that is entirely new. One’s own intrinsic nature blends in, but without dissolving⎯as if glass were being melted.”
HW This art project, which you are producing in cooperation with Danube University Krems, is entitled The Mission of Amikejo. But what is Amikejo, and what does your project stand for?
VP The Esperanto word Amikejo translates as “place of friendship.” Amikejo was founded in 1907 on a small neutral strip of land between today’s Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany as a small independent republic, at least on paper. The mission of Amikejo is therefore the enthusiasm for a republic which is connected in a larger sense with a free Europe based on togetherness.
HW How is the Amikejo region managing today⎯is this enthusiasm still felt?
VP Interestingly, the region is still dealing with the same problems. Today, this region between Aachen, Liège, and Maastricht is called EUregio Maas-Rhein⎯and the problems of cross-border life are similar. If you live there, your grandmother may be Dutch, you have an uncle in Belgium, and you yourself are German. Then you just have to deal with three different nations and their jurisdictions. With a place like this you really see where Europe works and where it doesn’tthat’s where it all comes together.
HW So at the borders you can see what works and what doesn’t?
VP Yes, especially there with the three borders. Because it’s almost absurd, and daily life is a farce to some extent. Some exploit it and always go to the country where they have the best conditions. And if you can’t do that, you just have to get annoyed and cover it up it with Belgian humor [laughs].
HW The Mission of Amikejo deals with borders, but also with identities.
VP A sign attached to the Vaalserberg tripoint linking all three countries, situated between Aachen, Maastricht, and Liége, sums it up in a nutshell: Mia hejmo, tiuj estas la limoj: borders, these are my home. At first this seems astonishing⎯but it’s easily investigated. The Mission of Amikejo could also be thought of as a building housing a diplomatic mission, but a mobile building with wheels that is on the move, one that takes the territory along with it, as it were. Thus, the boundaries of the embassy are intrinsic to it.
HW How do you go about the project, how do you record these spaces and shifting borders?
VP As an architect, I am interested in public space, the passage through this space, the mental flows, the landscape, the geology. I see it as a whole⎯and as a big treasure chest of things that have been thrown together. First of all I capture this treasure chest in photographic form, then I draw it. Workshops held at Danube University Krems, at the adult education center in Krems, and at other places, enable me to get in contact with people from the region and further afield, and integrate them in the work. One of the interim results is then the templates of Amikejo⎯templates and representations, in this case of the Krems region⎯which are also an invitation to other regions to participate in the project.
HW Where would you situate the project in artistic terms? Does Amikejo also build on the art of that time?
VP The period when the Republic of Amikejo was founded and the subsequent decades was not only an era of political upheaval, it was also artistically interesting: there was the dawn of modernism with Dadaism and artists like Paul Klee, Max Ernst, etc. With Dada everything was dissolved; the sound poems humorously adopted political speeches and converted them into something that could actually be endured again. It was thus possible to counteract the uncertainty of politics with this freedom of art, which in turn was very heavily structured. That’s what the Amikejo project does too.
HW The Dadaist Ursonate will also be taken up artistically in the project.
VP Yes, Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonate will be translated into Esperanto in conjunction with master’s students of European Studies at the University of Vienna and with the help of the Esperanto Museum of the Austrian National Library, and premiered on April 27, 2017 in Krems. Of course, we can’t even come close to the grammar of the Ursonate⎯Kurt Schwitters wrote and fine-tuned it for nine years⎯but we do revive his approach of a sound poem with humor and onomatopoeia. In the workshop, we also listen to speeches by politicians from the past year and translate excerpts into Esperanto, thereby using poetic subtlety and humor to oppose speeches that question democracy and seek only to provoke.
HW What is the connection to Paul Klee?
VP Paul Klee has always been a strong inspiration to me, especially the childlike aspect of his art: his ability to look right into the heart of things without prejudice⎯that’s a baring and disarming gaze, but one that is nevertheless extremely precise. He allows himself to see these things without dissecting them. That makes Paul Klee is the antithesis of Dadaism, as it were: the object of study is neither cut up nor collaged, but delicately embraced and scrutinized with a pencil. These studies by Paul Klee, which he noted down for the Bauhaus, are so fascinating; coming from the world of music, his writings are almost notations of pictorial thinking. After all, music also understands space and time in a different way.
HW An inflatable colorful volcano will be built on Campus Krems on April 27. What does this represent, especially in conjunction with Amikejo?
VP Volcanoes have been a focus of my art for many years, starting with my volcanic research at the huge construction site that was the reunited Berlin, and later when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted.
What you see with volcanoes is something that hasn’t yet been smoothed out, that’s still unformed, the raw nature of the world⎯and also the moment of transformation, the metamorphosis into something else. The volcano is neither folded or pressed, but rather built up from a source lying below, so the deposits and overlays become visible. Thus, on the one hand there is destruction or radical change, while on the other there is the fertile ash which can rebuild something that is entirely new. It refers to the political situation of the EU, among other things.
HW At the same time, as you show in your exhibitions, at a deeper level volcanoes are also linked to this too.
VP Absolutely, and that also applies to Europe. The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull was interesting in this regard. It didn’t actually destroy anything, but it totally paralyzed communications, connections, and travel. This ash cloud⎯I realized it as a large mural at the time⎯is actually a vaporized territory in the air, but it broke the entire European system. It made people realize once more how important travel is, and how important these connections are. This moment was indeed very European.
HW To what extent European? Because it is often in Europe that people only become aware of the connections and their advantages when they are in danger of being cut off?
VP Exactly. Moreover, I also found the image of this territory in the air beautiful; you can’t do anything with it, you can’t invest in this territory, it’s just an ash cloud in the air, but it certainly had an impact.
HW That would be a mobile territory, as it were, and thus the opposite of a nationally conceived identity.
VP Yes, that’s also what volcanoes stand for. As the world’s respiratory system they also refer to a global perspective rather than a national one: you see through the volcano into the vent, into the earth⎯and maybe you can think differently there in the center. You can see that the territories are relatively limited in their conception, that we have to think about borders differently. That’s why I’m interested in these overlays, when this kind of mountain expands more and more and almost becomes mobile with one layer above the other.
HW Let’s shift to European integration: In your view, has too little attention been given to how these political systems can be brought together?
VP Yes, the same goes for the friction and blending together, too. The image of the European volcano in Krems is very cheerful; all the colors of the nations blend together thanks to this graphic depiction of the volcano, which is somewhat reminiscent of a lollipop. The unique, inherent nature blends in, but without dissolving⎯as if glass were being melted. The pressure, the weight of the rock also leads to the creation of crystals or treasures. The designs of the crystal from Amikejo also refer to this. This crystal is set in volcanic rock and is located on a trailer, which could⎯in the future, if this is also realized⎯be passed on to other regions, too.
HW At the same time, the volcano is inflatable⎯as is its Instant Home, which you set up back in 1998 in public space in Los Angeles. What are you referring to here?
VP Just as with Amikejo now, Instant Home is about the concept of homeland: If you arrive somewhere as a stranger, as I did back then in the United States, you have a different idea of what constitutes a homeland. You can find a homeland⎯it’s not even all that geographically fixed; it’s what touches your soul instead. You can take this homeland with you and also find it in other places. I think of a homeland as being highly mobile, and it has nothing to do with a territory. You takes along individual aspects of being at home and you superimpose or overlay this. It was also important that this Instant Home was made of air. The substance that you think conveys security never actually existed at all.
Interview with Heidemarie Weinhäupl, upgrade magazine 2/2017, Danube University Krems
“The diplomatic mission of Amikejo is therefore the enthusiasm for a republic which is connected in a larger sense with a free Europe based on togetherness,” explains Valeska Peschke. The image of the European volcano, which is also going to be built as a whole-room installation on the campus of Danube University Krems, will also enable her to point to alternative ways of thinking about homeland, territory, and borders. “As the earth’s respiratory system they also refer to a global perspective rather than a national one: you can see through the volcano into the vent, into the earth⎯and maybe you can think differently there in the center. You can see that the territories are relatively limited in their conception, that we have to think about borders differently. Volcanoes stand for destruction or radical change, but also for fertile ash, which can rebuild something that is entirely new. One’s own intrinsic nature blends in, but without dissolving⎯as if glass were being melted.”
HW This art project, which you are producing in cooperation with Danube University Krems, is entitled The Mission of Amikejo. But what is Amikejo, and what does your project stand for?
VP The Esperanto word Amikejo translates as “place of friendship.” Amikejo was founded in 1907 on a small neutral strip of land between today’s Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany as a small independent republic, at least on paper. The mission of Amikejo is therefore the enthusiasm for a republic which is connected in a larger sense with a free Europe based on togetherness.
HW How is the Amikejo region managing today⎯is this enthusiasm still felt?
VP Interestingly, the region is still dealing with the same problems. Today, this region between Aachen, Liège, and Maastricht is called EUregio Maas-Rhein⎯and the problems of cross-border life are similar. If you live there, your grandmother may be Dutch, you have an uncle in Belgium, and you yourself are German. Then you just have to deal with three different nations and their jurisdictions. With a place like this you really see where Europe works and where it doesn’tthat’s where it all comes together.
HW So at the borders you can see what works and what doesn’t?
VP Yes, especially there with the three borders. Because it’s almost absurd, and daily life is a farce to some extent. Some exploit it and always go to the country where they have the best conditions. And if you can’t do that, you just have to get annoyed and cover it up it with Belgian humor [laughs].
HW The Mission of Amikejo deals with borders, but also with identities.
VP A sign attached to the Vaalserberg tripoint linking all three countries, situated between Aachen, Maastricht, and Liége, sums it up in a nutshell: Mia hejmo, tiuj estas la limoj: borders, these are my home. At first this seems astonishing⎯but it’s easily investigated. The Mission of Amikejo could also be thought of as a building housing a diplomatic mission, but a mobile building with wheels that is on the move, one that takes the territory along with it, as it were. Thus, the boundaries of the embassy are intrinsic to it.
HW How do you go about the project, how do you record these spaces and shifting borders?
VP As an architect, I am interested in public space, the passage through this space, the mental flows, the landscape, the geology. I see it as a whole⎯and as a big treasure chest of things that have been thrown together. First of all I capture this treasure chest in photographic form, then I draw it. Workshops held at Danube University Krems, at the adult education center in Krems, and at other places, enable me to get in contact with people from the region and further afield, and integrate them in the work. One of the interim results is then the templates of Amikejo⎯templates and representations, in this case of the Krems region⎯which are also an invitation to other regions to participate in the project.
HW Where would you situate the project in artistic terms? Does Amikejo also build on the art of that time?
VP The period when the Republic of Amikejo was founded and the subsequent decades was not only an era of political upheaval, it was also artistically interesting: there was the dawn of modernism with Dadaism and artists like Paul Klee, Max Ernst, etc. With Dada everything was dissolved; the sound poems humorously adopted political speeches and converted them into something that could actually be endured again. It was thus possible to counteract the uncertainty of politics with this freedom of art, which in turn was very heavily structured. That’s what the Amikejo project does too.
HW The Dadaist Ursonate will also be taken up artistically in the project.
VP Yes, Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonate will be translated into Esperanto in conjunction with master’s students of European Studies at the University of Vienna and with the help of the Esperanto Museum of the Austrian National Library, and premiered on April 27, 2017 in Krems. Of course, we can’t even come close to the grammar of the Ursonate⎯Kurt Schwitters wrote and fine-tuned it for nine years⎯but we do revive his approach of a sound poem with humor and onomatopoeia. In the workshop, we also listen to speeches by politicians from the past year and translate excerpts into Esperanto, thereby using poetic subtlety and humor to oppose speeches that question democracy and seek only to provoke.
HW What is the connection to Paul Klee?
VP Paul Klee has always been a strong inspiration to me, especially the childlike aspect of his art: his ability to look right into the heart of things without prejudice⎯that’s a baring and disarming gaze, but one that is nevertheless extremely precise. He allows himself to see these things without dissecting them. That makes Paul Klee is the antithesis of Dadaism, as it were: the object of study is neither cut up nor collaged, but delicately embraced and scrutinized with a pencil. These studies by Paul Klee, which he noted down for the Bauhaus, are so fascinating; coming from the world of music, his writings are almost notations of pictorial thinking. After all, music also understands space and time in a different way.
HW An inflatable colorful volcano will be built on Campus Krems on April 27. What does this represent, especially in conjunction with Amikejo?
VP Volcanoes have been a focus of my art for many years, starting with my volcanic research at the huge construction site that was the reunited Berlin, and later when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted.
What you see with volcanoes is something that hasn’t yet been smoothed out, that’s still unformed, the raw nature of the world⎯and also the moment of transformation, the metamorphosis into something else. The volcano is neither folded or pressed, but rather built up from a source lying below, so the deposits and overlays become visible. Thus, on the one hand there is destruction or radical change, while on the other there is the fertile ash which can rebuild something that is entirely new. It refers to the political situation of the EU, among other things.
HW At the same time, as you show in your exhibitions, at a deeper level volcanoes are also linked to this too.
VP Absolutely, and that also applies to Europe. The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull was interesting in this regard. It didn’t actually destroy anything, but it totally paralyzed communications, connections, and travel. This ash cloud⎯I realized it as a large mural at the time⎯is actually a vaporized territory in the air, but it broke the entire European system. It made people realize once more how important travel is, and how important these connections are. This moment was indeed very European.
HW To what extent European? Because it is often in Europe that people only become aware of the connections and their advantages when they are in danger of being cut off?
VP Exactly. Moreover, I also found the image of this territory in the air beautiful; you can’t do anything with it, you can’t invest in this territory, it’s just an ash cloud in the air, but it certainly had an impact.
HW That would be a mobile territory, as it were, and thus the opposite of a nationally conceived identity.
VP Yes, that’s also what volcanoes stand for. As the world’s respiratory system they also refer to a global perspective rather than a national one: you see through the volcano into the vent, into the earth⎯and maybe you can think differently there in the center. You can see that the territories are relatively limited in their conception, that we have to think about borders differently. That’s why I’m interested in these overlays, when this kind of mountain expands more and more and almost becomes mobile with one layer above the other.
HW Let’s shift to European integration: In your view, has too little attention been given to how these political systems can be brought together?
VP Yes, the same goes for the friction and blending together, too. The image of the European volcano in Krems is very cheerful; all the colors of the nations blend together thanks to this graphic depiction of the volcano, which is somewhat reminiscent of a lollipop. The unique, inherent nature blends in, but without dissolving⎯as if glass were being melted. The pressure, the weight of the rock also leads to the creation of crystals or treasures. The designs of the crystal from Amikejo also refer to this. This crystal is set in volcanic rock and is located on a trailer, which could⎯in the future, if this is also realized⎯be passed on to other regions, too.
HW At the same time, the volcano is inflatable⎯as is its Instant Home, which you set up back in 1998 in public space in Los Angeles. What are you referring to here?
VP Just as with Amikejo now, Instant Home is about the concept of homeland: If you arrive somewhere as a stranger, as I did back then in the United States, you have a different idea of what constitutes a homeland. You can find a homeland⎯it’s not even all that geographically fixed; it’s what touches your soul instead. You can take this homeland with you and also find it in other places. I think of a homeland as being highly mobile, and it has nothing to do with a territory. You takes along individual aspects of being at home and you superimpose or overlay this. It was also important that this Instant Home was made of air. The substance that you think conveys security never actually existed at all.
Interview with Heidemarie Weinhäupl, upgrade magazine 2/2017, Danube University Krems