BOCHUM FACTORY of LEISURE and CARE (BFPfW): How to become a Granny?

Public Space / Workshop

Bochum, Germany

2014

Cardboard boxes. Plastic bags. Wood.

Participation in project “This is not Detroit”, by Schauspielhaus Bochum and Urbane Kunst Ruhr. Bochum, Germany 12th -21st June, 2014.

The project aims to reflect on the future of the industry, of the labor and of European cities. Artists from Poland, England and Spain (the countries where Opel factories are running) have been invited to propose projects

Basurama has propose the project Bochumer Freizeit und PflegeWerk ( BFPfW).

“Sit under the sun, abdicate and be your own king.” Fernando Pessoa.

Eric Hobsbawm used to claim that London Tube was the biggest luxury mankind ever had: no yacht, sports car, or jewelry can be compared to that collective effort. BFPfW is a proposal for enjoying and reflecting on how to manage our collective wealth, taking care of our common ground and of each other in the time when we are all becoming grannies.

Good old Europe, like in granny’s, is the only place where carework still means something: in the ruthless post-capitalist societies arising in emergent countries and in the nightmares we have when facing the future, we have to take care of each other, both as the ultimate and the indispensable way of keeping ourselves together.

Everyone is welcome to propose all kind uses for the BFPfW, and to enjoy it. Can we think of a collective relax, fun and meeting space we manage, where we set the cooperation rules and colonnise this spaces that the failure of capitalism leftover for our future?

BFPfW was a factory that produced hand-made deckchairs with reused publicity banners and converting chairs into rocking chairs, together with a tap water cocktails and, specially a huge terrain vague that went green with years of rain. We were taking pictures from above with the handmade aerial pictures kit develop by publiclab.org

During the two weeks of its public opening, the BFPfW produced around 100 deckchairs and 50 rocking chairs that were used to enjoy the biggest, good looking and wilder terrain vague in town. The idea of low-cost, human scale parks that include luxuries such as those deckchairs and the sauna nearby (A work by Modulor Beat). The idea of getting together, building together, enjoying what we have together. Regular, very different people swinged by, had a chat or a tap water cocktail, took a walk, build or not… A small project for those willing to get together and getting old quietly and with others.

LET’S GET OLD

Let’s get old, indeed. Let’s get old happily, together, taking care of each other. The song by the swedish band Lacrosse that inspired us for that motto, and the videoclip we staged as a tribute to them. Europe is growing older irremediably next century. There are other continents with vibrant young people who are taking over. We are all become grannies, so we must learn to get older with happiness.