Eat the Wall
by_Dönerkind: Bodil Sofie Espersen (DNK), Rasmus Therkildsen (DNK/GER)
#collective #explorative #foraging #urban transformation #urban nature #DDR #Berlin Wall #bike
27.06.15 / 11:00-14:00 _SOLD OUT
27.06.15 / 16:30-19:30 _SOLD OUT
*it is a biking tour
DETAILS:
_duration: 3 hours
_language: DE / EN
_number of participants: 12
_accessibility restriction: not suitable for people with mobility problems
_each participant is asked to bring along a bicycle
Starting point: In Treptower Park, by Stern und Kreisschiffahrt building (Puschkinallee 15, 12435 Berlin) / S-Bhf Treptower Park
27.06.15 / 11:00-14:00 _SOLD OUT
27.06.15 / 16:30-19:30 _SOLD OUT
*it is a biking tour
DETAILS:
_duration: 3 hours
_language: DE / EN
_number of participants: 12
_accessibility restriction: not suitable for people with mobility problems
_each participant is asked to bring along a bicycle
Starting point: In Treptower Park, by Stern und Kreisschiffahrt building (Puschkinallee 15, 12435 Berlin) / S-Bhf Treptower Park
EN /
Eat the Wall explores the no man's land between east and west Berlin. Parts of this formerly marginal, controlled, lifeless place are now transformed into green paths crossing the center of the city where wild herbs, sprouts and plants grow. During this tour the audience will taste these urban greens, learn tips on how to use them and hear stories from Berliners who lived on both sides of the wall. The tour will be followed by a communal meal based on the vegetal treasures collected on the tour.
DE /
Eat the Wall erkundet das frühere Niemandsland zwischen Ost- und Westberlin. Teile dieses früher leblosen, überwachten Brachlands wurden mittlerweile zu begrünten Wegen umgewandelt, an deren Rändern Wildkräuter, Sprossen und andere essbare Pflanzen wachsen. Während der Tour werden die Teilnehmer*innen diese Kräuter probieren, Tipps zu ihrer Zubereitung bekommen sowie Geschichten von Berliner*innen hören, die auf beiden Seiten der Mauer gelebt haben. Daran schließt sich ein gemeinsames Essen an, zubereitet aus den unterwegs gesammelten Köstlichkeiten.
Author / guide:
Rasmus Therkildsen has an MA in German and Rhetoric from FU and Copenhagen University. He develops urban games and learning experiences for High School students visiting Berlin and is involved in making the urban space tangible to visitors.
Website: doenerkind.com
Eat the Wall explores the no man's land between east and west Berlin. Parts of this formerly marginal, controlled, lifeless place are now transformed into green paths crossing the center of the city where wild herbs, sprouts and plants grow. During this tour the audience will taste these urban greens, learn tips on how to use them and hear stories from Berliners who lived on both sides of the wall. The tour will be followed by a communal meal based on the vegetal treasures collected on the tour.
DE /
Eat the Wall erkundet das frühere Niemandsland zwischen Ost- und Westberlin. Teile dieses früher leblosen, überwachten Brachlands wurden mittlerweile zu begrünten Wegen umgewandelt, an deren Rändern Wildkräuter, Sprossen und andere essbare Pflanzen wachsen. Während der Tour werden die Teilnehmer*innen diese Kräuter probieren, Tipps zu ihrer Zubereitung bekommen sowie Geschichten von Berliner*innen hören, die auf beiden Seiten der Mauer gelebt haben. Daran schließt sich ein gemeinsames Essen an, zubereitet aus den unterwegs gesammelten Köstlichkeiten.
Author / guide:
Rasmus Therkildsen has an MA in German and Rhetoric from FU and Copenhagen University. He develops urban games and learning experiences for High School students visiting Berlin and is involved in making the urban space tangible to visitors.
Website: doenerkind.com
Interview with Rasmus Therkildsen (Dönerkind)1. So how does one ‘eat the wall’?
Eat the wall started because we were doing a project at the no man’s land that used to be the wall and I noticed berries, fruits etc growing there - in a way a metaphor for life conquering the death strip. Since I’ve been teaching in Germany I’ve been looking for ways to teach about the divided Berlin that aren’t about visiting museums, that are more tangible. You might not expect to go out for a walk and learn about the wall or the cold war but then you learn anyway. Also, I was fascinated by what you can find and what you can eat in the city. There are a lot of plants that I didn’t know were edible or could be used - who would have thought that it’s possible to walk around the city and eat (some of!) what you find there? 2. What is the significance of the tour’s route? Could such a tour work in another context? I might be able to divide the tour into 3 different parts and explain the reasons why I chose each section. The first part refers to where I actually lived the 2nd time I came back to Berlin, that was my vantage point. So I chose that part for personal reasons. Another part I chose for practical reasons - because the locations are central. The wall is 150 kilometres and there are better places to discover than this central location. But I wanted people to be able to discover something new in what they already know, to be able to revisit the locations and I also wanted to show them that there is a ‘hidden learning’ process, even for non experts - I wasn’t an expert when I started doing this. And finally, I wanted to end the tour at a place that connects strongly and resonates with the history of the Berlin Wall, where one person was shot. |
3. You are part of Dönerkind, which provides sustainable educational experiences. Could you explain your approach to the term ‘sustainable’ and why you think it’s important?
When we plan these projects we plan based on historical data and also very much through meeting people, talking to people who lived in the area pre and post the wall, listening to their stories, getting an idea of how the fall of the wall has actually affected people’s lives. What we do is sustainable in that we spend a long time researching, working with people and working with complexity in a way which thinks about where we are now and how things could change. For Eat the Wall we spent a lot of time meeting and talking with residents local to the wall site. Living around the wall feels peripheral in the sense that some of the housing is being renovated but that there are still many social issues. People who live where the wall used to be still identify with either west or east and still see the area as sort of no man’s land. The only people who actually visit the former no man’s land and foraging for herbs etc. are non-Germans. Possibly because the space is actually defined as a through route for bicycles. And so this project is also about redefining this space. It was interesting to speak to people who lived with the wall - and their non-spectacular ways of dealing with the wall, or ignoring it. 4. Do people try the herbs? A couple of times - we try very seasonal food so everyone has a different food experience. We usually eat only what is growing while we walk. However, elderflower fans will be pleased - I prepared an elderflower drink in advance because it won’t be there anymore by the end of June. In winter we try different foods - and schnapps! 5. Have you worked with taste before? If so, what are your thoughts on the way people react to taste, and how the strategy of engaging with people’s tastebuds changes the way they react to a space? Taste makes people discover that what we ride past can actually be eaten. What we want to achieve is to make people realise that this historic place can be used and experienced in different ways. Apart from the practicality of being able to add some great ingredients to a salad for free, the whole approach is about combining a slow pace of learning with something that’s easy to fit into everybody’s life. 6. Travelling along the route of the wall you are inevitably walking side by side with history. How important is it for you to maintain contact with history, and is there a significance to the consumption of newly grown (albeit maybe polluted) forms of sustenance in a place where the past is so immediate still? A bit of both - it is important to maintain contact with history but also to make something new. When making something new it is important to me to keep history in mind and to use it as part of sustainable educational meetings with it. It is beautiful that this former no man’s land is alive and growing in new ways. 25 years ago the wall was sprayed heavily with chemicals in order to deny anything from living there. Nowadays you can actually eat most of the food and there are ways to find out which areas are safer in terms of what you can eat. Around the memorial chapel on Bernauer Strasse they planted rye - I tested it and found that it’s fine. 7. You organise tours through Berlin where the destinations are Döner shops or street art rather than U-bahn stations or tourist hotspots. What is the value, for you, of creating these new decentred networks? When you teach in the city you can only structure your teaching so much because it’s always changing, with buildings being knocked down and all. At the wall there are no buildings to change but you feel the flow of time and you feel how hostile, cold and inedible. the area is at certain times. So the tour is also about a physical encounter. |