Je travaille aussi...CHEZ TOI! - BAR DU ROND POINT

Erik Göngrich - Marseille 2012-14

Je travaille aussi...CHEZ TOI! approach:

Cook a dish that has a special meaning or history with a local inhabitant, a group of women, the owner of a nearby organic restaurant, the director of a local archive or the owner of the fish shop in Mazargues. Ask them to cook this meal in public and to tell its story. Make drawings on kitchen plates, towels and aprons. Set up a kitchen in the BAR DU ROND POINT with equipment borrowed from neighbours. What can?t be borrowed should be bought second-hand at Emmaüs (charity shop). Invite everyone to come and share the meal. Enjoy it as a collaborative sculpture of exchange.

Je travaille aussi...CHEZ TOI! - BAR DU ROND POINT was part of the project PARCEQUE.

This project was a collaboration between Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Boris Sieverts, Stefan Shankland and myself. It was undertaken as part of the Quartiers Créatifs Project, initiated by Marseille-Provence 2013 (European Capital of Culture) and supported by the Goethe-Institut.

PARCEQUE was a twenty?four month long artistic research-and-action-project in Les Hauts de Mazargues / Marseille, a district at the south border of Marseille adjacent to the Calaques - an outstanding National Parc of France. A district in which the main prison of Marseille (Les Baumettes) was placed and which accommodated during and after the Second World War different refugee camps and emergency sheters. These were replaced in the 70ies by social housing projects (La Cayolle) while the prison still remains.

Today, new urban planning tries to connect and rearrange the old town Mazargues, different industrial areas, some smaller gated communities, the remaining farms, apartment buildings and social housing. In this area for most people the shopping mall is the only public space to meet. A public place of exchange does not exist. In this setting we placed a wooden veranda for a month. A sculptural platform that was specifically developed for the location. Together with the inhabitants we created a place of memory and for discussions, exhibitions, guided tours, cooking and different workshops.

Our fieldwork culminated in a public program that took place in May and June 2013 on a brownfield area facing the shoppping mall E. Leclerc Sormiou in the La Cayolle quarter. Over a period of four weeks, local residents, volunteers, students, members of associations, school children, social workers, artisans, town planners, architects and artists met there to build, cook and participate in PARCEQUE, which contained 101 proposals for this neigbourhood in transformation.

?Je travaille aussi...CHEZ TOI!? and the BAR DU ROND POINT were two of these proposals.

Asoziale Skulptur oder wie lässt sich eine Kulturhauptstadt verkochen?

Außer einem Café in der Mall gibt es in dem kleinen Vorort La Cayolle in der französischen Hafenstadt Marseille keine frequentierten öffentlichen Orte des Austausches. Noch nicht. Demnächst bekommt der Nationalpark ?Calanques? ein Eingangs- und Informationsgebäude. Während dort heute noch die Roma campieren, stehen die Investoren schon vor der Tür.

Inmitten der 50er und 60er Jahre- Sozialbauten setzte Erik Göngrich in Kooperation mit Boris Sieverts, Benjamin Förster-Baldenius und Stefan Shankland im Juni 2013 eine Holzveranda mit Tischen, Bänken und Herd: die ?Bar du Rond-Point?. Über vier Wochen schaffte der Bildhauer mit dieser ?asozialen Skulptur? einen Ort der Kommunikation. Viele der vor allem muslimischen Frauen und Kinder kamen, quatschten und blieben. Es wurde eingekauft, gemeinsam gekocht. Rezepte wurden präsentiert und ihre Geschichten, und die des Ortes, thematisiert. Letztlich wurden auch die Männer neugierig auf dieses ?Wohnzimmer?, mit dem sich Göngrich peu à peu in das Herz von La Cayolle geschlichen hat.