Documentation 2011
A little bit of plastic bags, sunshine, fresh food, a little bit of bike tires, sounds of guitars and the magic surroundings of Wagenburg Lohmühle with the sweet D.I.Y. sauce, bits of participation and joy of sharing is the recipe for the cake of art and culture festival RECYCLED CREATIVITY, that swung the minds and souls of Berliners from the 19th until 24th of September.
It all started with a series of workshops in various locations in Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Mitte, inviting people to share the joy of making. Volunteers as well as locals and guests of the city joined the process of recycling old newspapers into zines, searching for peace in the rush hour with yoga, upcycling electronics into music instruments or decorating clothes and bags with filigree stencils.
When the week started, the city was already covered with posters, inviting people to join the Great Recycling day, share their ideas and knowledge during the Community Day or enjoy the Recycling Cinema, which took place on Tuesday the 20th of September, in the cozy MANYO café in Alt-Treptow. Candle lights and friendly people welcomed the guests to enjoy a diverse program of shorter and longer documentaires and artistic recycling movies, ending with an amazing VJ-DJ set by Alfred Hackepeter with recycled horror and fiction movies from the 50ies and 60ies. When the movie evening was finished, the guests had just started their journey through the world of recycling, which continued on Thursday with the Community Day.
On Thursday afternoon the doors of Open Design City were opened for experiments with various waste materials. During the evening a tasty dinner was served by volunteers as the friends from Kulturlabor Trial&Error presented their brand new book „Upcycle it! A toolkit for creative recycling“. The highlight of the dinner was the dessert, offering people plates with trash to discuss and reset their perception of what waste is, as well as possible solutions with recycling.
After the intellectual foreplay during the Community Day and the warming up by the series of workshops, the crowd seemed completely impatient for the Great Recycling Day. Though, the biggest thanks probably goes to the weatherman, who decided to leave that Saturday clear and sunny. Already from the early noon we experienced a real explosion of creativity – people making bags, jewerly, music instruments, running around with extravagant plastic wigs, building birdhouses from old election posters, swapping clothes and knowledge, helping each other and building alternative workshop corners. The stage was conquered by the hiphop sounds of the Recycling Man (aka Big Stu), road stories of Joe Czarnecki, or fascinating Northern star Miranda de Verdier and others, wrapping the visitors in a friendly and slightly philosophical mood. Our smaller citizens built their own recycling kingdom in the KinderKiez, while the chefs blessed the stomachs of the visitors with a rich and delightful vegetarian meal. Even the darkness couldn’t stop the liveliness in the hive – some workshops and performances continued in candle light... The rest of the energy the visitors and crew shaked out on the dancefloor in the after party with amazing and beloved band „Trike“ as well as funky DJs. It seemed that each and every recycler found a thing that he or she was looking for – it doesn’t matter, if through the sound of music, hot discussions or the joy of making, but the celebration of recycling managed to show that the future can be something more than a doom scenario, if you feel that there is something we all can do about it.
Of course it all wouldn’t be possible without the great support of Loesje e.V., Kulturlabor Trial&Error e.V., elektrischerwalfisch and the Jugend in Aktion programme of the European Commision, Wagenburg Lohmühle, MANYO cafe, Open Design City, Smart Crafts and many many others! An especially great thank you to all those, who found time and joy to make the festival happen! Yeah, we all – Niti, Judith, Tau, Carsten, Janina, Chloe, Gabi, Henrik, Ema, Coline, Lena, Adrian, Juli, Pierre, Roland, Thea and all other volunteers – we did a great job! A small piece of the cake is still warm in the pocket, reminding us of the festival, but you can help to share it with others by sending your photos, stories or links to info@recycledcreativity.de
Main Festival Day
Photos taken by Carla, Janina Gutermann, Kay Strasser and SPNR
