Schlaraffenland / Cockaigne

About

By using the theme of the festival – “Satt” (English: “lush”) we transform space in and around the UP Project Space into a temporary art venue. It will be dedicated to an international presentation by the artists from Germany, Poland, Ukraine or Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The “Satt”/ “Lush” theme includes works made in different medias, such as performance, photography, video art and sculptural objects. There is a strong focus put on the interdisciplinary character and also on interaction with inhabitants from the neighborhood. We would like to take our festival guests into a journey through a fictional land of eternal happiness and plenty, where the abundance is possible – in the Land of Cockaigne.

“Cockaigne” is a synonymy for “sweetness of doing nothing” paradise. But in the medieval times it was also projected as fears of hunger and death. Although today’s Western is full of possibilities, we fight against very advanced solitude. In the glut of inputs we have no time for a conscious perception. We eliminate a simple need of self-definition and slowly disappear in unreal fictional creation of our own personality. The reality awakes new phobias, stereotypes and fears, which are resulted by the glut. But what is actually missing, is a direct contact with another person. During the “Cockaigne” (Richardstr. 43/44 and its surrounding) this search for a personal contact changes into a social manifest.

Participating artists: Janusz Bałdyga, Mykhaylo Barabash, Marta Bosowska, Vincenzo Caterino, Angelika Grzegorczyk, Urszula Kluz-Knopek Michał Knychaus, Irina Kostyshina, Szymon Kula, Urszula Lucińska, Mladen Miljanović, Grzegorz Myćka, Kornel Ofierski, Joachim Seinfeld, Vitalii Shupliak, Karolina Wojciechowska, Marcin Zaremba.

Opening hours during the “48 Stunden Neukölln” festival: