Un/Real Estates: experimenting with alternative ways of organising

2016 Kulturpark Stolpe GmbH acquired the former Betonwerk at the river Oder to develop it into a sustainable cultural and commercial location.
We came across it when visiting Ponderosa at Gut Stolzenhagen a non-profit organization consisting of 6 active members and 116 supporting members, whose primary purpose is to create an international meeting space for performance artists in the countryside outside of Berlin. Meeting Uli Kaiser and his partner Stefanie Maher, who run Ponderosa and talking about the idea to make Ponderosa part of the research of Working Utopias, they told us that they had bought a new place not far from Ponderosa – an old concrete factory (Betonwerk) in Stolpe – and that they were planning a two-year period during which the Betonwerk would be an experimental site for collecting and accumulating ideas on what the future of that old factory could be.

Later that hot summer afternoon in July 2016 Anke and Christina went on bikes to visit the fascinating location; a huge terrain with large long-stretched former production halls that spurred their imagination.

Over three month between April and June 15 students from European University Viadrina Frankfurt / Oder and University of Fine Arts Braunschweig were asked to develop ideas, concepts and possible business models to initiate the long-term transformation process for the former concrete factory. but also , ,.

In a second workshop titled “Speculative Forensics” the students subsequently engaged with different kinds of materials they had collected over time to re-construct them into little sculptures that tell a story of the Betonwerk’s future that were distributed across the premise of the Betonwerk. As carriers of future narratives – memories, insights and desires – these sculptures constituted seven raw scenarios. At the end of the day, those so-called ‘nests of future’ were presented to the owners of the Betonwerk as well as the interested public in the course of a common walk.

It also allowed them to ask questions, to engage in discussions and to express which future they would actively support. The day ended with a barbeque and music. The last day of the course allowed intense reflection and a structured feedback between the students and the different cooperation partners of the summer workshop.

After the seminar has ended, the transformation design students documented the project also in a little booklet which they exhibited at HBK at the end of the term.