***
Story
Es war einmal…
Let me shortly describe our situation and mission here.
Gottsbüren is a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in Germany, about 20 miles from Kassel. This beautiful little village, build in half-timbered style and surrounded by nature, has to deal with outflow of people. Once there was a pretty good infrastructure in this fairy tale like village but gradually school, hairdresser, shoe shop, butcher, pension, restaurant, bar, and every food shop closed. Partly because people moved away, leaving empty houses behind and partly because the majority of the now remaining 800 villagers is 60+. A slowly dying fairy tale.
Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind…
Now we, art students and teachers from the art university, department space&designstrategies, in Linz, Austria, with “cow” as currant topic of the year, found it a perfect match to interfere. With the goal not to change the people or community there, but to give them a opportunity to get inspired, a new point of view and a chance to change themselves and their circumstances, to revitalize this nice piece of earth again. We also want to spread the news that there are empty houses for sale! In the countryside! In a nice village! Waiting fore someone to take care! And very VERY cheap!! We want to get people from Kassel, the next bigger town nearby, interested to come, see and understand the benefits of moving to the countryside. So we are making a big exhibition called 2nd CENTENNIALE GOTTSBÜREN (exhibition every 100 years), where every student is presenting his or her own project they had over the semester. And we have our own TV show, revealing a new episode everyday on Offener Kanal Kassel broadcast.
So lets see how the story goes…
***
diary 23. June 2015
No place again
I felt that I needed a lot of alone time. Although our sleeping place seems like out of a dream-world to us, all the other impressions are of that great contrariness, that it is quite a lot to handle.
The day started, as I awoke from a strange dream in which I was shopping with my mummy and found the perfect lipstick colour matching to my favourite nail polish.. I know how superficial that sounds, but I think it was just the very opposite picture, my mind created to escape the new situation that confronts all of us with our basic needs. Where to sleep? What to eat? And where to go to toilette.. We are also on our own, far away from family.
So as I tried to find out where I was, feeling the weight of a thick and cosy blanket and hearing it raining heavily outside, I figured out that the important thing about my dream was the carefree feeling and the warmth of my mother, just spending time with her. And that feeling carried me through the day.
At nine o’clock am four girls of our group, or how I’d like to call it the “ART COLLECTIVE” made nice breakfast. And then we started to search ourselves a place where we want to exhibit our artworks and projects. I struggled to find a good place for my MILK STONE exhibition.
Thoughts of the day…
Right now, at this very moment, I feel how this vision, which someone else was dreaming, this dream, that someone must have build in his mind, is coming to LIFE!
In this little village called Gottsbüren, full of so much stubbornness and willingness to let die, greed and envy among inhabitants, there is one girl.
One girl with a huge red ribbon. And she places herself for everyone to see and is spinning her red ribbon. And just the fact that she is there changes everything. Building a kitchen, cleaning, putting so much love and effort in broken houses, suddenly makes sense. Finally. Because with us just being present, something is happening.
Maybe its not about saving this village, but just about making an impact, like opening a gap, a gateway to a new flow. Because people here got stuck. I wonder what the the original vision of the founder of this village looked like, and why it got lost.
The Aura of Gottsbüren is as conflictive as the look of it. What happens to a community? Why do people in small villages need those conflicts? – it seems to stop everything.. stops the flow.. stops the development.. BUT – what if THAT is exactly what is needed to evolve?
First, things, buildings, pretty much everything emerges out of a vision, a thought of someone. And having that thought is kind of a development. Second, being inspired is what keeps evolution going. If you are inspired by a thought and get that feeling, you will stick to it until it eventually is realized, thought becomes matter. The third part is, bringing that matter back to frequency. Because if you make the mistake to stick to the “oh so dear thing” either you or the creation, or both, will break and you get stuck.
Its like a mother should lover her child. It shouldn’t be a selfish love, that she wants to keep it to herself and hides it. It should be the kind of love of letting go. So that the child can get experience, make connections and evolve.
So in order to turn matter into new frequency you need to let it go. That means for example sharing so that someone else can be inspired and the circle can start afresh, but in a different or higher frequency because it already implies the prior evolution.
Or another possibility is destruction, because destruction isn’t a bad thing. It’s necessary. And again something new, a fresh thought can evolve..
So the challenge of our time is not to get stuck. And that’s the reason why we do, all the time and everywhere, because we have to learn how not to and the only way to learn that is to be in the situation. So it’s no bad thing that Gottsbüren got stuck after a great thought, vision and realisation of this beautiful little half-timbered village. It is a learning process and everyone can decide how fast he wants to take his lesson. Either you take what’s there and get inspired creating something new, or you let go, move away and let destruction lead, to let new beauty rise.
progress of the day
- made breakfast
- enjoyed sunshine
- had a presentation from architect students from Kassel
- searched/found (empty) houses and places for our project presentation
- set up infrastructure – now we have real clean toilettes with watering-can flush (filled in the backyard)
- build a kitchen and cooked
- set up a office room were we have computers and printers but no internet access..
- managed to get shower access at the local fire-station
- visited the beautiful church
- found lamas… 😀
impressions
Q-TV links
Q-tv 4
Q-tv 5
Q-tv 6
space&designstrategies university homepage
http://www.strategies.ufg.ac.at/?lang=en
Gottsbüren homepage
http://www.gottsbueren.de/gottsbueren.html
CORY ROSE 
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