UNLAND

UNLAND engl. wasteland In the summer term of 2013 Professor René Francisco Rodriquez from our partner university Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana (ISA) was our guest in Halle, offering a workshop to students of both the art and design faculty. We had met René Francisco a year earlier in Havanna on a wasteland close to the city, were he was constructing a 'temporary city' with his students for the Havana Biennial. We had already heard of his teaching method 'Desde Una Pedagogìa Pragmatica', or short DUPP, in which he intently explores and searches for the relationship between art and life, or design and everyday necessities, with a fixed group of students over a longer period of time. The students investigate their desires, develop visions and ideas and then implement them collectively in temporary or permanent artistic works. They often do this in collaboration with the residents of Havana. In a country shaped by shortage and poverty, working artistically poses a challenge. It requires fantasy and the ability to improvise and associate freely, not to mention an organizational talent, social skills and strategic thinking when it comes to mastering bureaucratic obstacles or acquiring materials. Thus, René Francisco's teaching does not only focus on artistic design and form as such, but encompasses an innovative and holistic method for implementing artistic interventions in the urban and social context. The workshop in Halle took place under less precarious signs, and-due to the shortness of time and the fact that the event took place alongside all other study obligations-could not be performed with such consistency. Nonetheless, it tied in directly with many of the discussions and questions we have here in Halle with our students and that have gained importance in the public art discourse of the last years: How do we want to live? How can our actions have a lasting effect? How can we engage in and actively shape societal reality? What could a societal sculpture look like? During the workshop, the students developed a series of performances, interventions, and installations in the public space. This collection of works documents all individual and joint projects and insight gained during the workshop. Andrea Zaumseil