Treatment for an event as part of a series of cultural projects in public spaces – a participatory media station in the Kurpark Velden

idea | concept | text alexandra reill
production kanonmedia
on invitation by barbara ambrusch-rapp | vienna 2018
photo author and source unknown – please provide us with data

Narratives from our daily experiences create the images and stories of our lives. In Velden, here in the middle of the spa gardens, which are popular with visitors to this internationally renowned location as well as with the indigenous inhabitants of one of the world’s most beautiful lake regions as a place to stroll and enjoy themselves, there is a media station set up almost like a circus – a table with chairs under a canopy/sun sail. In this small tent with open walls, the artist Alexandra Reill works with a laptop and scanner, surrounded by people who have brought their photos and are now working with the artist to arrange them in a graphics program, curiously learning how layout works.

The collaborative design process is accompanied by discursive moderation – an essential element of this installation: Alexandra Reill asks people about anecdotal stories related to these photos; about personal impressions of Velden that will be included in the joint publication; about childhood memories; about family traditions; and writes them into the book live.

The project week culminates in a presentation of this graphic-discursive-participatory process in the form of a reading lecture, ideally held in a library or reading room. The co-authors and audience are invited, and Alexandra Reill moderates the collective reading. Multiple copies of the individual pages of the publication are scattered around the room, small “stacks” of pictorial life notes, arranged according to the names of the co-authors, who are invited at the beginning of the event to take their own pages and present them to the audience, reading from them and combining this with short interviews conducted by Alexandra Reill with individual participants, before giving the pages away to the audience.

In a post-processing phase, the “little book of life” – a collection of notes on experiences and pictorial memories – Velden re_visited – will be carefully edited and printed as a limited edition in the number corresponding to the number of participants. Two additional copies will be added to the municipal archives. All participants will receive a copy by mail from the town administration – as a memento of personal experiences in Velden.

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