This Open Atelier was one of two of its kind in 2016, the second being the realization of the AU Environment and Action “Ommaggio all’albero (Tribute to a tree)”, by Pino Poggi. The basic idea was to involve our inhabitants and bring them to a dialog with artists. Best in the artists very own ambient, which made us continue to put in action the transformation of our spaces into a temporary artists atelier, like we did one year earlier with our project “Procesi“.
This first Open Atelier in 2016 was held from May 23 until June 24. The general issue we wanted to bring to the topic was ecology with a special focus on awareness. In this, first atelier with Katja Felle, we mentored her, the result being an Azione Utile. We worked with the students of the local artist and professor for artistic education Peter Hergold.
To raise awareness about the amounts of waste a person in our society produces and to answer what to do with the waste, besides burning it.
Obviously, we needed the local waste management society, the Komunala Slovenj Gradec, which were quite enthusiastic. The cooperation was very constructive, thanks!
The idea was, to substitute the usual wooden desks of park benches around the city with some artificial desks, made with mainly waste-materials. How did everything go?
First, we presented our idea at the Gimnazija Slovenj Gradec at one of Professor Hergold’s classes; afterwards we went for a walk around the city to collect our raw materials, abandoned waste! Next step was to create a mold of the desks we would substitute, so we could fill this molds with waste we collected to be then filled with synthetic resin. The entire process was accompanied by students, which supported the artist as assistants. Talks and discussions were interesting and the artworks, done for three different benches at three different locations within the city did make their sustainable impact. Up to this day (2019) one of the three benches is still in use and many papers and articles were published about this initiative, which the artist would have liked to see produced massively.
It has been a very smooth project, everyone involved seemed to be satisfied and thanks to the supporting entity, in this case our city municipality, we were also able, in big parts, to cover the costs of this endeavor.
