One of my best memories of biology lessons at school was the introduction into fauna and flora in microscopic size. We harvested some grass outside the school building and cut it into little pieces. We stored it in a jar with some water for 3 weeks and we explored the life inside of one drop of the liquid under a microscope.
On September 2019 we designed a new bed in the entrance of the art camp, which is part of the color garden of CASAdelDRAGON. After harvesting delicious cauliflowers and some onions in January 2020 we prepared the bed for a new season with salads and herbs beginning of March 2020.
We cleaned the stone frame around and inside the bed and collected a big pile of grass and rotten organic material.
We covered the soil with hay from another field nearby and we tested the watering system.
Finally the bed was ready. But we thought about all the organic material with was part of this bed before. If we take out season by season salads and vegetables we need to fertilize and re-energize the soil. We are using already methods like composting and terra preta and water from aquaponics. The question was: what else we can try to transform organic waste into something useful for our beds.
The memory of the magical biology lesson guided us to another experiment.
We stored all the organic waste from cleaning the bed inside a blue barrel and placed it under a carob tree nearby. We filled it up with stored rain water.
The water will cloud greenish, stink and in the next 2 weeks there will be a strong increase of numerous bacteria, both aerobic and anaerobic. A lot of them will be later food for paramecium, a single – celled – organism. We will add some of the liquid to the bed when we are going to water the plants in the bed.
Paramecium is a very good indicator for water quality and in many aspects an interesting organism (its DNA has double size compared to humans).
To transform organic waste close to the bed into a useful fertilizer is a strategy we will explore more. Following the second law of thermodynamics and reduce the increase of entropy will guide us to our food of tomorrow.
In early 2020 we had a lot of talks about living in communities, values and goals and further activities and upcoming projects.
It was also a time to reflext about the last years. The following collection gives an overview about social educative artistic activities of our community and address one Always re-emerging question: “What is this all about?”
In spain we are runing an artist residence, the house of the dragon (CASAdelDRAGON). One key to deliver informal education is a huge garden area called the color garden. It is our campus and space for a lot of social activities like camps in nature for families with kids (left photo).
Also we are involved in the summer school activities of APEAL, which is a NGO in Bucharest (Romania).
For the community project of ApEAL in Chiocanesti near Bucharest we collected some IT stuff to enable the association for computerbased workshops.
A group of biology students was building a bridge over one old water channel, designed by roman and arabic conquerors. This project was not part of the original workshop but the realisation of a common wish of the students to contribute in some way to the social project of our color garden.
The CASAdelDRAGON is an artist residence, guest house and a think tank for innovative social art projects. In the basement of the house we run a gallery since more than 10 years and we use the space also for partizipative art installations like the regalo bar, a shop, in which you can not buy anything, you just can receive a donation or you can donate something to others. It was quite a challenge for latin souls to use this opportunity.
Part of the color garden is a vegetable garden with a lot of young fruit trees. As an addition we are involved in beekeeping in the province of Castellon. This project address the actual situation of bees between industrial agriculture, micro-economical views on nature and sustainable needs for human habitats.
In a relation to the MLU Halle (Martin Luther University) we hosted from time to time biology students in the guesthouse. As part of one exhibition about social art we showed an smal scale aquaponic installation.
Magda from a little village near Bucharest was sitting on the terrasse of CASAdelDRAGON and said with tears in her eyes: “I want that my Children will see what i see now!” We where thinking the same 3 years before and we invited the first kids from Romania to visit the region of Maestrazgo, the land of the templer and deeply connected to the european history. In the following years we had several groups visiting and partizipating in our social art projects and we will continue this in 2020 and further on.
In our german home unit we established the “room for art” in the basement of one house. We invited people with interest in social art and contemporary education for a one day workshop to paint together. By transforming passive visitors to active creators of their environment we sculptured their brains, following Beuys and his idea of social sculpturing.
This Hand belongs to a great person. Her name is Fadella. She was coming from Bahrein to study our community life and she gave us a very deep impact in the arabic spanish european history. Her finger points on a handmade ancient nail, laying on a stone which is part of a roman trade path (which is part of our color garden).
The hosue of the dragon is an open house. A lot of times we are sitting together and share the Food whioch guests and Friends and visitors. These events are not intensivly organised and prepared and they appear more spontaniosly – but exactly this delives a flair, with is great and special.
Our close friend Anne is runing a severgardens project in south France. Part of this UNESCO featured project is to explore, develop and share knowledge about natural pigments and dye techniques and ways to produce natural colors for artistic purpose (which is also part of our activities in the color garden in spain). We spend a very cold and long day in France to connect locals with organic products and techniques and developed some connections for the project of Anne.
Following an invitation we gave some lectures in Germany for students of Biology. Partizipative strategies and methods of social art projects for science and classical education might re-design the thinking of former education.
In the educative space of Cecile – permaculture Penyaflor – near Tortosa we invited the guests to paint with us, reflecting the theme L.O.V.E. Later these art works became part of an exhibition under the title AMAL.
In Romania we organised a workshop about leadership. A group of children, teachers, government officials and social workers was involved to create a game about leading a summercamp for youth. The game will be published as part of another social art project ARTSURPRISE. It will be a tool to train youth in social leadership.
The missing link is another social art project in which we connect social spaces like Ceciles Permaculture Penyaflor, EcoTros or others. Quo vadis – the question for all of us and especially for social entrepreneurs like Cecile.
German students are buildung a rocket stove in the color garden. They are highly motivated by creating the foundation of something useful for the lunch of the next day (and the next day was really the next day!).
In another open social space, the masia from Francesc, a friend living close to Gerona, was th stage for one art performance in the night. We created some light sculptures in the dark and enjoyed a conversation about art and relevance and sustainability of contemporary art.
To transform a passive event of a lunch into an active partizipation of the guests we invited some creatives in the color garden to prepare and enjoy local food and experimental cooking.
Learning something is in our opinion a personal process embedded into a social environment in which the person is free to discover and receive what (s)he is Looking for. Therefor the job of a contemporary living community with the goal of establishing a social space for informal learning and personal happiness is to create this space, to maintain it and to protect it.
Tine gave a workshop about awareness and meditation. The workshop was part of the educative activities of our free University (UNIIE). This underline, that we see our task more in enableling the space for informal learning than to just offer workshops.
A lot of people have a lot to tell. We want to enable them to do this… and to enjoy it at the same time.
Life brings people to the house of the dragon and they continue their way through their lifes. Some of them, as the nordic nod mosaic in the kitchen of the CASAdelDRAGON reflects, find back later and enjoy another time what they created and what others created in between.
If you have been reading this article till now – something we appreaciate a lot – you might belong to a group of people who really want to go deep into something. If you cross all These pieces of Information and ask yourself where is the red line in all of this, it is the power and success of partizipative art and ist influence on contemporary education. We are not aware about the outcome but we feel to be part of a wider movement of a lot of creative people all over the world. And even if we do not know if we will reach the goal, we are happy on the way.
FamiliaFeliz Info(rmation Day) 2018 – 10 – 06 from 10 am to 10 pm – Cervera del Maestre – Castellon – Spain
We come together with members, helpers and friends of our community to talk about further steps to develop our living community. We will show you our projects, resources, partners and opportunities and we are interested in your dreams, ideas and projects.
We will enjoy this day with delicious food and a lot of fun.
We have a lot of space for cars, caravans and vans and mobile homes and we have some caravans on our colorgarden plot and limited places in the artist residence CASAdelDRAGON in the village nearby. Accommodation is free.
You could apply here for staying up to 3 nights for a short visit around this Info Day or apply here as a volunter for a longer visit.
In the early spring 2018 we mounted more than 20 bee hives in various fincas near Cervera del Maestre. We ask for a little piece of land, quiet and abroad from traffic. We assamble between 2 and 6 bee hives in one location and we are looking for a place with sun in the morning and a little bit of shadow in the hottest time of the day.
On the finca of Otto we mounted 2 bee hives. Every box is also linked to a person who was in any way important for my life.
Utz for example was helping a lot since 1987 to develop the artist residence CASAdelDRAGON and supporting a lot of our activities too. Now he is coming sometimes with his family and the next generation “take-over” the mission step by step.
Marta is bee keeper and very important for this project. Most of the boxes are a donation of her and her friend Jesus, also bee keeper in Castellon.
Amalia is a warm friend, artist (paintigs, sculptures), and she helped us a lot in connecting with local people and administration.
In the beginning of the color garden project we managed around 3 ha land and started with cleaning the first stone walls and implementing the first raised beds. After some years we added time by time new installations and “features” in the bio garden, the sculpture garden or even inside the social area near the open kitchen.
At the same time we had more and more visitors and guests, in october 2017 first time students from the biology department of the MLU Halle (Saale) Germany. Later in spring 2018 we welcomed again students from Halle, first from the “Burg Giebichenstein (art university)” and later new students from the MLU Halle (Saale). They where interested in aquaponics and in management of natural resources. More and more it became usefull to establish a system of sign posts in the garden to route the visitors between all the different locations.
In spring 2018 we expanded the area up to more than 8 ha and we placed new signposts in crossings and important places.
Also we liked to play a little bit with the words and wrapped some of the targets in an artistic linguistic way.
The choice of Hercules pointed out an area where we are able to accommodate horses or donkeys. But the place is also linked to a powerful and important decission of Clara related to the horse project. We liked to underline this powerful decission of her and we will remember it linked to another famous decission in the greec mythology, the choice of Hercules. By the way, we like classical music too.
In summer 2017 the artist Juan Petry started to mount first bee hives in plots of friends in the region of MAESTRAZGO. The bee hives are part of a large social sculpture project for the next years.
Main target is to give bees a refugium without any chemical or economical treatment, a “social space for bees”.
If we follow the economical thinking, we will not arrive in a “better” world, better for bees is not better for shareholders. At the end every system could be optimized only in one direction. Therefor its time to create a bee project far from business and economical benefit.
ADA – abejas de amor – is a social sculpture, and everybody is invited to join this project. It is part of the activities of the living community FamiliaFeliz in Spain.