The project was created in February 2020. The first meeting of the group took place in Cologne in physical presence. Fifty people, including laypeople and professional artists, met. A space should be created for improvisation, for body and voice work. And then, as for everyone else, the pandemic intervened. A new, virtual room was created from the situation – the BLACK BOX
The project description says: “The term black box is a model from psychology. It is assumed that there are visible impulses or stimuli and visible reactions or a visible behavior, in between there is a black box, quasi the invisible processing center of the human being. Although we see ourselves as individuals and are even physically separated, we share questions, feelings, worries and ideas. ”
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The BLACK BOX created here enabled a common space for processing and artistic creation. A project that was initially physically located in North Rhine-Westphalia has now become a cross-border art project in the digital space. With the help of the project website and online courses via Zoom, the 73 participants became participatory on the four topics Contact, refuge, environment and trust worked. The digital enabled people from different cultural contexts to work together and promoted a sense of community across closed national borders and social distancing. The initiators for the four thematic focuses came from New Zealand, Kenya, Germany and Uruguay. At the end of the project, what had been developed resulted in three exhibitions that took place in parallel in Cologne, Nairobi and Canelones. The visitors were guided through the three exhibition rooms digitally via a live stream and were able to find out what had been developed in the previous three months. At the same time, an open Zoom conference took place, which also became part of the exhibition on screens in the rooms.
We have all learned one thing in the last year: it is not a digital project if there are no technical difficulties. The project report says: “The musician Ramesh Shotham leads the drum language GlobalTala and the participants repeat him enthusiastically. When he then begins to drum, Zoom recognizes a background noise and automatically mutes the musician. ”But such mishaps are part of the digital. The focus at BLACK BOCK was above all on the human connection in artistic creation at a time when keeping distance was and is an expression of mutual care.
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The final presentation is here available.
In 2010 dancers, visual artists, project managers and ethnologists joined forces to form the 687 eV association. The purpose of the association is to establish long-term partnerships regionally, internationally, on an equal footing and sustainable through art projects and participatory projects that expand the concept of art.
This project was funded by Soziokultur NRW in the funding area “General Project Funding”, with a focus on Transculture 2020.
Photos on the post page and the front page: Marco Hussel
Artistic and project management: Lucia Lehmann
Artistic director Uruguay: Flavia Garrido
Artistic director Kenya: Kefa Oiro
Performance: Flavia Garrido, Analía Celeste Muñiz, Ramesh Shotham, Kefa Oiro, Joan Chavez, Lucia Lehmann, Walter “Nego” Haedo, Judy Bwire, Jack Atulo
Project assistant: Isabella Lehmann
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