Its June 24, 10.00 o’clock in the morning, Slovenj Gradec got a new event-location, meeting-point, epi-center for alternative cultural-production and civil-society engagement. This is the idea that got many people spontaneously involved. This narrative finishes here, two years of work and now we dispose of spaces. What would happen from here on?
The opening-day, we opened and had guests all day long, artists showed off their little tricks here and there, we discussed what raum AU should be, what it could become, what would be necessary to address within the close future. People from all over Slovenj Gradec came over and could, just by the way enjoy a documentary exhibition; we named intriguingly “Volunteering breaks down walls”.
Photographs taken during the 6-month work brigades, showed literally people that broke down walls, otherwise we would not have been able to create physically this new cultural space, but on the other side tried to make it clear, that certain walls of habits we get used to, have from time to time be metaphorically be broken down, to make space for new dimension, that change through times.
If you are interested in what we communicated that time to the media, read the English press release, dated June 25, 2011.
Please consider also, the exhibition in all the pictures, this way of living art-exhibitions is our core understanding of a cultural space.
…as one can obviously, like David Valič in the picture above, go for a contemplating walk through the spaces letting oneself inspire of what is offered at the specific moment, but one should also sit, eat, drink, talk and be able to discuss everything else that matters. The documentation pictures below show quite nicely the possible promiscuity in cultural spaces, the broad palette of options that a common space can offer to each and every one.
Maybe this vision of ours, stated also on the entrance door would maybe confuse its reader, leaving him for a moment with the question… what for? A lot can be written about this argument, actually has been, but in practice, time will show, what this specific, second raum AU (the first one was opened on November 20, 1974 in Regensburg, Germany, by Pino Poggi as an art project… This time it is a civil society initiative that would like to evolve at a systematical addition to urban infrastructures, a playground for adults.
Our aim is to give alternative and professional cultural production a space to organize, an institution to cooperate and much more.
On the long run we would like to create an example of the essential added value an institution like raum AU, multi-layered, inter-disciplinary and always and exclusive cooperative and purpose-drive, can contribute to an environment. Time will show, if we will succeed in this endeavor!
