Feb. 12-26, 2023; Sept. 10-26, 2023
THE WALK, THE PARADE,THE PAVILION AND THE STICKER
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO POST-INDUSTRIAL CITIES
BARBARA HOLUB & JASPAR JOSEPH-LESTER
The performative walk THE WALK, THE PARADE, THE PAVILION AND THE STICKER between Van Abbemuseum and Onomatopee is based on the collaboration between Barbara Holub and Jaspar Joseph-Lester for WE PARAPOM! European Parade of Apple Trees – a flagship project Barbara Holub conceived and directed for the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 (2021-2023), for which she had invited Joseph-Lester to produce a project. It connected Chemnitz (former Karl-Marx-City/ GDR). and Eindhoven (NL), two cities which at first glance don’t seem to have any obvious connections or similarities. Eindhoven and Chemnitz are post-industrial cities and both cities are in the process of transformation. However, these processes are at very different stages and their development
has moved in quite different directions. Whereas the legacy of Philips, with all its remnants of a socially engaged enterprise around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century is still omnipresent in Eindhoven (the last factories now being turned into creative hubs), Chemnitz is still in the process
of emancipating from the traumatic re-unification after the fall of the iron curtain in 1989.
WALKING AS CRITICAL MAPPING – METHODS AND OUTCOME
The performative walk was based on an intensive research of the site, also referring to the industrial history along the River Dommel, for exploring specific topics concerning current urbanistic and social issues and hidden poetic moments in the neighbourhood.
Barbara Holub and Jaspar Joseph-Lester presented three sites as „platforms“ for communal engagement as result of their research to be appropriated by citizens as underrecognized public spaces. The walk was continuously interrupted by calling out the issues of WE PARAPOM!, which were then placed as prints at the various sites. At platform #2 the participants were asked to conceive stickers responding to the stickers encountered during the walk (referring to Chemnitz Pavilion/ see report byJaspar Joseph-Lester) which were produced as Riso-prints in a workshop at Onomatopee concluding the walk. After platform #3 the participants were invited to engage in a dialogue across the channel of the River Dommel, calling out loudly selected issues of WE PARAPOM! with paper megaphones.
The final outcome was a zine produced by Onomatopee (available in the shop at Van Abbemuseum) and a video (presented at the Angewandte Festival, University of Applied Arts, June 2024).