Dumpster Diving

Dumpster Diving
Von R ebecca Eg e ling in Ko o p e ra t io n m i t
Ar t ur van B alen , C hrist ine B o rch un d
Feli x R ucke rt
Researchre p o rt Ta g 1 - 7
Outline des Projektvorhabens:
„Die Mauer verläuft nicht zwischen Ost und West, sondern zwischen arm und reich” steht auf
der Glienicker Brücke, die Berlin mit Potsdam verbindet. In den Innenstädten haben privatisierte Flächen zugenommen. Hier gilt das Hausrecht, unerwünschte Personenkreise können
des Ortes verwiesen werden. Was dem mittelständischen Bürger nicht auffällt, bekommen
Obachlose, Punks und andere unliebsame Personengruppen leicht zu spüren. Ihre Ausweise
werden von privaten Sicherheitsfirmen kontrolliert und sie selbst werden des Platzes verwiesen.
Andererseits gibt es auch Orte, die dem Theaterbesucher normalerweise verschlossen bleiben: Mit Suppenküchen und Notübernachtungsquartieren hat sich eine „Infrastruktur für Arme“
herausgebildet.
In einer autoethnographischen und journalistischen Stadtraumrecherche widmen sich vier
Künstler, Rebecca Egeling in Zusammenarbeit mit Artur van Balen, Christine Borch und Felix
Ruckert dem Thema Armut, Obdachlosigkeit und Überlebenskunst am Rande des Existenzminimums.
Unsere Reserach question:
How to find ways of survival that are of pleasure?
Index der Woche 1
TAG 1: Wir haben eine Group culture etabliert, um Regeln für unsere Zusammenarbeit für den
gemeinsamen Arbeitsprozess festzulegen.
TAG 2: Wir haben unser Wissen und unsere persönlichen Erfahrungen mit Obdachlosen einander mitgeteilt
TAG3: Wir haben ein erstes physisches und journalistisches Experiment im Stadtraum durchgeführt und im Schlafsack öffentliche Räume eingenommen.
TAG 5/6: Die Security des Hauptbahnhofs hat uns gebeten, die Notübernachtung aufzusuchen.
Gesagt, getan:
Tag 1: Group Culture
At first we wanted to make a working culture. As this project is all about exploring alternative
ways of living and living this alternative, the terminology “group culture” seemed to be more
appropriate to us. The idea for the group culture is to make rules and agreements for the collaboration. It can help to create a safe space and build mutual trust as it enhances the understandings of each others needs. The agreements are all made in mutual consent. In our case
the group culture session also clarified a whole range of other questions from the practicalorganisational level (how do we want to organise our days, how to deal with artistic authorship
in a newly formed group)to the emotional (what are my fears and what criteria need to be met,
so I can feel safe from them).
Here an excerpt on some of the rules we consented on:
Day-structure
-start in the theatre with bodywork at 9.30pm, followed by an emotional check-in-round ending
in a discussion on tasks to be done.
-have at least the evening dinner together to brainstorm and reflect on the day.
Food:
-live from the alternative, strive to have less as 10 € money exchange / per week per person.
All the other food will come from the bin or alternative sources. money will be put in a communal
money pot.
-cookingtask on organic rotational basis.
Organisation:
Decisions that affect the whole group will be made by consensus decision making.
(Consensus decision making is an egalitarian approach to organising used for example at Occupy. the idea is that it empowers everyone to participate actively in the decision making and
diverse opinions are respected. It also enhances active listening to really understand what people mean and say when they disagree. This stands in strong contrast to the majority vote, where
the majority can just overrule the others.
In the beginning some concerns in the group were raised around losing power and artistic authorship. Raising the issue and making yourself vulnerable by expressing fears also enhanced
the trust and a sensitivity towards each others competences and the amount of work one has
put into it. )
Tag 2: Sprechen mit Herr Doktor-Vater
Tag 2:
Rebecca shared her books and research she has done around the topic homelessness/alternative forms of living. At first she felt unprepared. Then she realised she is preparing for this
project since 2008 and in te course of time collected a whole library together.
Artur shared a collective reading on a text about art-activism and political art from Stephen
Duncombe and Steve Lambert. In the text they write: “Art about politics is not necessarily political art. The function of political art is to challenge and change the world. This should be obvious, but there is plenty of “political art” which uses social injustice and political struggle as mere
subject matter: making these forces objects for contemplation and, perversely, appreciation. The
point of political art is not to represent the world but to act within it.”
Taking this statement seriously, it has a lot of implications for our project. We have a political
subject around homelesness, marginalisation, alternative living. How do we want to engage with
these subjects? What is the objective of our project? What is political? and how to do a collaboration between us and homeless people?
We discussed examples of good political art projects and how to go on with our research.
Christoph Winkler our mentor gave tipps for working together and also suggested to us not to
block ourselves in any direction. As She She Pop working principle is: everything can be said.
We need to search and experiment, experiment and experiment.
Tag 3:
Embodied Sleepingbag Exploration (E.S.E.)
The embodied research with a sleeping bag came from a desire to understand
through physical engagement what it feels like to be sleeping on the streets, in the
corners of the city or other seeminglessly public spaces. Obviously we first had
to go to the Diakonie to get hold of a sleepingbag and then afterwards we began
testing out the act of sleeping. The experiment was repeated at various locations
and ended as we got kicked out of the Hauptbahnhof by the security after seeking
half an hour shelter in the main entrance.
The research was initiated by questions such as:
What kind of bodies does homelessness generate?
How do I seek shelter?
What bodystories are living inside the sleeping bags?
To what extend is public space still public?
Tag 3:
Gewöhnlich reagieren wir auf den Anblick von geringer Körperpflege, den Geruch von Urin,
schlechter Ernährung und Alkohol, indem wir den Blick abwenden. Ein Zeichen von Ekel. Wir
verweigern es, Beobachter des Verfalls zu sein. Wir entscheiden uns, hinzusehen. Dies ist die
Grundlage unseres Vorhabens: Wir schauen nach innen: Woher kommt der Ekel? Und nach
Außen: Wer ist eigentlich dieser Andere? Können wir ihm gleichwertig begegnen?
Durch Gespräche finden wir heraus, dass der Körper des Obdachlosen im Zentrum unserer Recherche steht. Von hier aus lassen sich alle Fäden spinnen, alle Narrationen entwickeln: Über
das Politische, das Soziale, das Ästhetische. Wir finden für das Interesse an der Körperlichkeit
des Obdachlosen, die heimliche Faszination für ein mögliches Tabu, den Begriff: „the beauty of
decay“, die Schönheit des Verfalls.
Tag 4:
Cappucino Camera’s und Schlosshöfe-Sekt
Unsere Versteckte Kamera im Cappuccino-Karton für jegliche under-cover Aktionen.
In den Schlosshöfen haben wir uns nach kostenlosen Lebensmitteln umgesehen.
In einer Herrenbekleidungsboutique wurde uns ein Sekt ausgeschenkt.
Tag 4:
the merits of an evening walk
During an evening a productive exchange
and brainstorm happened about how ourperformance-piece could look like.We imagined
roughly the following stages:
Stage 1:
Sleeping bag choreographie inside the
theatre. actors, dancers and Non-actors (i.e.
homeless people we made friends with) are
on stage.
no audience seats. audience is participating
in the piece as they have to find their place
inside the whole setting.
Stage 2:
Leaving the theatre with all the people. Individually or collective. Why and How is here
still the question.
Stage 3:
walk through narrow streets. in the streets we
pass containers, homeless people. sleeping
bags.
The distinction between homeless and nothomeless, actor and non-actor is blurred.
Stage 4:
the public walk ends in a real soupkitchen.
actors serve food. or homeless people serve
food.
payment maybe with vouchers, that the
audience doesnt have. Again the distinction
between homeless and not-homeless, actor
and non-actor is blurred.
Tag 5: In der Notübernachtung,
Sandweg 26
We start where Christine stopped. As she was being forced out of the station with a description
of the emergency sleep-over, we visit the sleep-over on a saturday night. Men and women are
separated when they dont have a proof of marriage.
Artur: I share my room with M., a 28year old drug addict. An impression of the room. Talking
with M. and listening to Cypress Hill. Rock-Hiphop he calls it. “Cypress Hill ist einfach zeitlos.”
Till 6am in the morning M. smokes bong, probably to ease the pain of the addiction. At 9 am
everyone is thrown out of the house. It’s Sunday. it snowed and everything is closed.
Tag 6:
Sonntags Frühstück beim Netto
Oben: Ein Sonntagsbuffet am Netto-Supermarkt-Container.
Rebecca: Ich teile ein Zimmer mit einer Frau, die obdachlos wurde, weil die Leiharbeitsfirma
nicht zahlte, wenn keine Arbeit anfiel – und die Arge eben auch nicht, zumindest nicht rechtzeitig. Nun ist sie wohnungssuchend und arbeitssuchend, denn es war unmöglich, die Schichtarbeit aufrecht zu erhalten: Die Notübernachtung schließt ihre Pforten um 22:00 Uhr.
Selten habe ich einen derartigen Zustand des Wartens erlebt: Warten auf die Nacht. Warten
auf den Morgen. Wenn man um 09:00 Uhr die Notunterkunft verlassen MUSS, warten in einem
billigen Café oder bei der Bahnhofsmission oder der Diakonie. Warten auf 17:00 Uhr, den
Zeitpunkt, ab welchem man wieder in die Notübernachtung darf. Warten auf den nächsten Job.
Oder eine Wohnung. Hoffen. Wenn man noch kann.
Tag 6: die Kamasutra des Wartens
Zurück im Theater nehme ich die Wartehaltungen ein, die ich in den vergangenen
12 Stunden erlebt habe. Ich fotografiere sie und benenne sie als: Das Kamasutra,
die „Stellungen“ des Wartens.
Tag 6: die Kamasutra des Wartens
Tag 7:
Lunch at the Diakonie
This morning we felt the need to make new friends so we decided to go for lunch at the diakonie. We ended up spending the whole afternoon encountering many of the people taking use of
this space and its facilities.
Tag 7:
Nachbesprechnung und After-Care
The various meetings unfolded through empathy, storytelling, questioning and a huge amount
of deep listening and revealed complex personal stories that surprised us with their individual
beauty but also left us emotionally marked to an extend that some individual aftercare in the
group was necessary.
Tag 7: