Hellersdorfer Wallpaper – Art in the Underground

AG Hellersdorfer Illustrierte (Berlin)

Hellersdorfer Wallpaper
Workshops and a wall newspaper in public spaces, 2014 / 2015

Hellersdorfer Wallpaper is a collaborative project which will be developed with residents and institutions in Hellersdorf. Various methods will be used to collect, discuss and rework experiences, habitual practice, social networks, economic develpoments and political processes into text and visual information.

The focus will be on institutions which are relevant for various groups of residents, for example housing associations and cooperatives, recreational facilitators and educational institutions. We would like to meet these institutions’ representatives and their users and involve them in a collaborative process.

Hellersdorfer protaganists will be asked to present and discuss their experiences in a first public workshop. During a second workshop we will undertake research trips using various methods (sound walk, photography, sketches, surveys etc).

The results of this research and the workshops will inform a wall newspaper which we will billpost in various places.

A „Hellersdorfer Wallpaper“ will be designed and produced, based on this illustrated newspaper and bringing together its most important subject matter. This wallpaper will be billposted in public spaces (in Underground stations). It can also be used in private flats.

We have developed a Hellersdorf font as a unifying, visual element, creating a type face based on the typical floor plan of Hellersdorf’s housing blocks.

Presentation

from 06. Dec 2015 until 27. Feb 2016

in the station urbaner kulturen.

The artistic reasearch project Hellersdorfer Wallpaper by AG Hellersdorfer Illustrierte began in October 2014 with a series of meetings and conversations with various protagonists who either work in institutions in Hellersdorf or are active in independant initiatives. In their first presentation in the station urbaner kulturen in December 2014 the AG brought fragments from these conversations together in the form of a word cloud.

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The AG developed a Hellersdorf Font out of the shapes created by typical housing blocks in Hellersdorf when seen from above. This font has been used in all the project’s graphics. In a first wall newspaper, fragments from interviews where layouted in the Hellersdorf Font over photographs of Hellersdorf at night, collaged like a wallpaper rapport. The newspaper was put up in every Underground station in Hellerdsorf in Februar 2015. In the station, it was shown alongside arial photos of green spaces in Hellersdorf and sequences from the East German TV series Einzug ins Paradies from 1987.

In March 2015 the AG hosted a round table talk in the station called “Two outsides” about outdoor and green spaces which play a special role in Hellersdorf’s housing estates. Participants included representatives of local initiatives Bürgergarten Helle Oase and KUDEPO (Hellersdorfer Zentrum für Kultur, Demokratie und Politik e.V.).

In June 2015 the AG organised a one-day workshop at KUDEPO about the sensual exploration of noise, wind and light conditions on the estates. Light and air phenoma were explored, noted, sketched and mapped during excursions around Hellersdorf together with about 10 participants. The second newspaper was then created from the participants’ sketches and descriptions and put up in the Underground stations from 11th July and in the station alongside video footage and commentry of the participant’s sketch books from the workshop.

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On 6th December 2015 the AG presents the Hellersdorfer Wallpaper as an initial conclusion to the project: in a traditional wallpaper rapport, in which an 18th century floral tendril pattern is connected with modern abstraction, the contours of typical building formations in Hellersdorf appear layed over a net of footpaths. The exhibition presents further work made during the project in addition to the wallpaper and the two newspaper designs previously hung in the Underground stations. The Hellersdorfer Wallpaper can be purchased and functions as a wallpaper for public space or for the home.

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