Carlos Perez Marin

I left Ceuta for Kassel on August the 3rd and I did it knowing that documenta could be cancelled at any moment because the shareholders (the politicians) had released a statement about the scientific advisory panel on August the 1st. If something finally happened, at least we would be there. 

This time I did not come as an architect in charge of the scenography but as a member of the LE 18 collective organising activities.  Although I had seen the pictures the team shared in June, I could not wait to see with my own eyes how people were using both the indoor and the outdoor spaces, so I came directly from the railway station to WH22. Ole Wieczorek (an assistant venue coordinator who had always been kind to us) was surprised to see me there and he had taken over Lidia's tasks while she was sick. Some people was reading the introductory text, other were sitting, taking some rest, reading some books from our “library”, a women was watching Nadir and Soumeya video, When they leave, that they had decided to use instead of the recording of the dinner in Marrakech that was never made. At the end of the space, two people were watching a Bouanani film in the screening room. This scene was close to Siddhartha Mitter`s description that he had wrote for The New York Times in June: 

It was evident for me that the last vault was the best place for screening, because of the size and proportions of the space and because of the acoustics. Initially we were going to use a video projector but finally in order to use it in the garage for the talks, we decided on a better and cheaper solution, to use a 65” tv screen. Instead of using the typical backless bench you find in museums, I preferred to use armchairs in which you could sit comfortably. Moreover, the idea of having a media library with old Moroccan movies may seem like a simple idea to carry out but the legal restrictions for screening in Germany almost drove Nadir and Soumeya crazy. They had to make inquiries to find the copyright owners for each film, films they had in DVDs support as a donation of a collector but they needed an authorisation for screening. It was a bizarre situation, especially with films whose filmmaker and producer had passed away or with censored films whose copyright belonged to the state. In the end, they got the authorisations for 22 films. Definitely they should write the story behind all these authorisations. 

I had a conversation with a Turkish art student (and sobat-sobat), he told me that our space was the one he liked the most in documenta, it was the most sincere and welcoming. While other collectives used furniture as decoration to give the impression that you were in a living room, it did not matter if you were in the middle of an exhibition, in the middle of an industrial warehouse, Le 18 was proposing a real living room to stay, not just to pass through, adapted to the space and to the natural light. He added that he used to come to watch a movie or just to rest when he had some free time. I was so glad to know that what we thought was being used the way we wanted. 

Then I went to the garage,  despite the pictures and videos I had seen on Instagram, I wanted to experience the space, without cars and with the rugs and furniture. I saw a couple sleeping on the mattresses that were on the “stage” and I loved it. Ole had cleaned the roof and now with the sun, it seemed another space, completely different to the one we saw in January. In our chat, someone wrote that the garage became a meeting point every evening, where collectives and friends came to chat and spend time together.  I was looking forward to living that experience.

I was the first from LE 18 to arrive in Kassel, Laila would do it also the 5th and then the others would arrive in the coming days, till 25 people were invited. We had to prepare the 5-day workshop we were starting on the 7th. 

The first morning we had breakfast at ruruHaus. We wanted to check the atmosphere at the starting point for visitors, but suddenly, we saw Iswanto coming to greet us. I thought he was just going to say hello but he stayed with us for 30 minutes while Reza Afisina (another member of ruangrupa) was waiting for him at another table. He was talking quietly with Laila as if he didn't have to give a talk right there and in just 10 minutes. 5 minutes later Reza came and took him to the conference room. We followed them but we entered the room, which was already full, through the public door from the street. For the second time Iswanto spent more time with us than we would have expected being so busy with the event, and it wasn’t going to be the last one. 

Before leaving Marrakech in March, Laila had sent me an email where she proposed that we organise together a three day workshop in Kassel based on our experiences in the desert. Of course, and again, I was going to accept without hesitation, I just needed to think on a topic it should match with the interests of Laila, LE 18 and documenta fifteen. At least I had something very clear in my mind, it should be something for local students, not just for visitors, remembering the conversation Francesca and I had with Iswanto in the ruruHaus kitchen in January. At that moment I did not know I was going to organise a workshop but once Laila wrote to me I replied I would like to involve students and universities other than those of fine arts, with which all the collectives wanted to work. After having received Laila’s proposition, I sent her an email with some ideas (on April the 2nd):

After some discussions we agreed to think what an oasis in Kassel would look like, from different perspectives:

After the meeting we had in May, Iswanto sent me (through Chiara) some email addresses from German colleagues who could be interested in the workshop. I also searched on the Internet for professors from different universities and departments (architecture, urban planning, landscape, ecological agriculture…) to whom I sent the information proposing to collaborate. I only had two replies, one from a professor at Kassel University who shared the information with her students and Renée Tribble, the head of the urban planning department at the University of Dortmund. I had several conversations with her, in order to get to know each other and to share our interests in this workshop. For me it wasn’t about putting a logo of an institution in the workshop poster, but to develop together the methodology and the aims of the proposal. Renée had been visiting professor at the Architecture School of Kassel and she proposed to enlarge the study area, including one near Fulda river where she had been working with artist Markus Ambach and other people in the project A Landscape, in the framework of documenta after the invitation made by lumbung member ZK/U-Center for Art and Urbanistics.

The proposal was interesting because it is an agriculture area in the middle of the city and she had a lot of information collected with her students when working with Markus, who was also going to participate in OASE KASSEL. It was a pity not to have started to prepare the workshop at the beginning of the year, I could have talked personally with professors in Kassel during ma first visit in January and we could have participated in COMPOSTING KNOWLEDGE, an ongoing experimental network for knowledge production, initiated by ruruHaus with universities from Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Bulgaria, Singapore, Lebanon, Canada… but Tyuki Imamura, the coordinator of this program, told me about it at the end of April and it was too late to join them, otherwise, it could be impossible for me or Laila to be part of another project with all the work we already had with the (non)exhibition and the public program.  

I was really happy to finally organise the workshop with Laila, Renée, Iswanto and Markus but I was worried by the lack of time. We published the program on July the 4th and we had just one month to find participants, fearing that the university students had already finished their classes and were therefore no longer in Kassel. I told Renée that even if we only had one participant I would be willing to do the workshop with him because I was really interested in, at least, doing a reflection on the topic. Three days before we started the workshop, we had five participants; an urban planning student from Kassel, two German art students from Kassel, a Moroccan cultural management student (originally from the Drâa valley in Zagora) living in France, and a Moroccan artist. One day later, the Moroccans said they couldn’t come so we were going to have only 3 people, however, the day before the beginning we received an email with 5 artists who wanted to take part. I was happy to have 8 participants and in a certain way, I was calmer about the possibility of organising a workshop that did not arouse any interest. 

On August the 7th we started the workshop with presentations made by Laila, Renée and myself and the presence of Iswanto, who could only stay the first and last day. However, none of the 8 participants were at WH22. I tried to reach them by email but I couldn’t avoid thinking that it was a complete failure. We could keep the presentations, since there were public waiting, Iswanto came with an architect from documenta production team, a member of sobat-sobat was there too, visitors who wanted to attend the talks and Le 18 team (Francesca, Nadir and Soumeya had arrived the day before to Kassel). Nonetheless, I was a little ashamed because Renée had come from Dortmund just for the workshop, that is, she had come for nothing… 

I asked myself what had been the problem, is it because the topic was not interesting? 5 days were too many? Was the information not very clear and appealing? Did we publish the call for participants too late? We had shared a Google Drive folder with texts, videos and links to show it wasn’t just a very superficial proposal with typical images of the desert, there were researches and initiatives like Caravane Tighmert, Caravane Ouadane, Project Qafila that showed a certain knowledge and experience of what the desert is, so it was only necessary to be curious to be interested in the pedagogical proposal. From the beginning Laila told me to think a 3 days workshop but I considered it couldn’t be enough for an urban planning study, aimed at students from Kassel. It wasn’t for visitors that would only spend several hours on one activity instead of visiting all the venues. OASE KASSEL was supposed to be for students living in the city. About the communication, I knew Iswanto, Renée and  Veit (an architect from a local collective and teacher at the art school I had met in May)  had sent the information to all their students, in Kassel and Dortmund. Someone had printed the pdf and put it on the bulletin board of the Urban Planning School the days all the students were presenting their last works, so everybody saw the information. From the beginning I thought German students were more curious than Spanish, but I was wrong. At a moment Renée told me, “Carlos do not think you did something wrong, last year I proposed two workshops in Summer time in Dortmund and I only had three students for the first one and nobody for the second.”  

While talking to Laila, Renée and Iswanto, the urban planning student, Jan, arrived and as I had told my colleagues, I was willing to work with only one person. 

We finally started the workshop, first explaining the aims and then a series of talks by the organisers; what an oasis is (Carlos); oasis and image-nary (Laila); A landscape (Renée). 

That night there was a concert organised by lumbung member Serigrafistas Queer from Argentina, an opportunity to meet other collectives. On arriving we saw Iswanto and he came towards us, I thought he was just going to say hello, but he started asking Laila and me questions, “The pictures both of you showed this morning during the workshop, are they recent or are they old ones? Are people still living in the oasis? When is the best period of the year to visit Morocco and the desert?” He told us he was impressed by the Saharan caravans routes and also that he wasn’t surprised German students were not curious to participate, given the attitude of European youth, he added, we should come to Jakarta to do the workshop  and we would see how many students we would have. I had the same opinion comparing Moroccan and Spanish students, my students in Tetouan (at ENAT) had a mentality completely different, with much more eagerness for learning, which did not prevent me from being surprised by the German attitude. We saw clearly that Iswanto really wanted to come to Morocco and we proposed him to come in February, so he could assist to the 1-54 African Art Fair, not because of the fair but because all the parallel events developed by galleries and collectives, and after Marrakech we could visit some oasis and ksour in the Drâa valley (Zagora). We continued the conversation till the end of the concert and Iswanto reminded me to send him a message once the final discussion about the oasis in Kassel was scheduled because he was very interested.  

The day after we decided to visit the plot in a very pleasant bike ride, with Renée, Laila and Jan. We could see how irrigation techniques were similar in Morocco and Germany, with canals and water reservoirs along the river. Renée and Jan explained different aspects of the city related to that area, specially the opportunity the city had lost developing on the top of the hill an urban development project for an industrial area. I appreciated very much the attitudes of Renée and Jan. There were no barriers between the student and the professor, who was also the head of the urban planning department at the University of Dortmund (knowing that this position is highly prestigious in Germany). At the end, we visited SOLAWI a solidarity garden with whom she and Markus had worked for the project A Landscape. They couldn’t attend the workshop but they were interested in knowing more about the oasis and about the relation between urban planning and agriculture, the way we proclaimed with Oase Kassel. I told Laila that it was a pity that Francesca and Louissa had not been able to contact them earlier because I was quite sure they could have developed the Qanat workshops with them, again with the purpose of developing activities with local communities and not just for visitors of a contemporary art exhibition. 

The third and fourth day I worked with Jan at WH22 (Renée had some work to do in Dortmund those two days), trying to define the main axes that should be considered to built an oasis, which meant an agriculture area with trees and crops that could provide food and construction materials, as well as protect the inhabitants from the cold and the hot weather. For that it was very useful the information Jan provided; temperature and wind speeds throughout the year, the use of river Fulda to produce electricity, the river floods, the city’s plans for decarbonisation… We started to compare how people live in the ksour in Morocco, and specially in modern neighbourhoods based on a ksar and we agreed there were some principles we could use in Kassel like the compactness and density of future buildings. We did not arrive to draw a plan, we just did some sketches, but I was happy to have done all those reflections because they could be a base to continue the workshop, which Iswanto had already evoked in our conversation in May.

The last day we had a conversation about the experience of the workshop and about the real possibilities of thinking of an oasis in Kassel. Besides Jan and Renée, Markus Ambach and Karsten Winnemuth (Essbare Stadt) joined us. Karsten would have loved to participate from the beginning because he wanted to learn how people in the oases use trees to protect crops, something they did not do. He and Markus talked about the need to propose an experiment to the city, to build an oasis in the surroundings of Kassel.

At that moment I realised that maybe the workshop was not a failure, over all when Renée told me that the day before she had had a call from the ministry in charge of urban development, they wanted to know if new urban plannings were really compatible with sustainable development, to which she replied that maybe things should be done differently, even radically differently and that she was part of a workshop where we were exploring the oasian model that could be applied to Germany. The ministry civil servant asked her if they should organise a committee to study the possibilities of the oases as urban models and Renée answered she had to think about it. Leaving Gudkitchen where we had the conversation while we were preparing the Moroccan diner, I crossed Iswanto who could not arrive in time for the conversation due to another activity. He asked me about my impressions during the workshop and despite the lack of interest by German students, he assured me we would continue it together in the future.

The conversation took place at Gudkitchen because that evening we organised a cooking session, The taste of olives, by Firas Hamdan, a Jordan musician (aka 7awi) that had performed at Meydan #2 (the music program) invited by LE 18. Gudkitchen was a (kind of improvised) kitchen situated in the backyard of Fridericianum museum, where everyday there was a collective cooking for free where you could meet and hang out with everybody. 

I don’t know if we will do something related to oases in Germany but at least this conversation proves that a simple workshop with just one student can have more relevance than the number of participants may indicate. However, the comment I appreciated the most was the one from Jan we said goodbye, “Carlos, thanks so much for everything, I have learnt with you these five days more than the last semester at the university.”

The same day I was leaving for Kassel, Francesca created a new WhatsApp group (Conversation Kassel), with Laila, George (Bajalia) and me. Shayma Nader (Palestinian artist who had come with Francesca to Tighmert in 2018) was supposed to come again to Kassel and she had organised with George a performative talk/walk, On the Wonders of Creatures and the Marvels of al-Barzakh, but she had last minute impromptu and Francesca and George thought of scheduling another activity, a conversation that was planned in a very first draft of the public program. I really liked the exchange of ideas that we had, it was clear that we shared many interests and attitudes, despite developing different initiatives, in different places and with different purposes, however we had many things in common and it was really a pleasure to prepare the conversation and carry it out.

On the 12th we had this conversation brings together the initiators of various cultural initiatives and projects such as LE 18, Qanat, Youmein Festival, Caravane Tighmert, Caravane Ouadane and Project Qafila to reflect on the lessons learnt from collective wanderings, wonderings and workshops developed in Northwest Africa over the last decade. 

Once the talk was over I could say I finished my participation in documenta fifteen and I could spend some time visiting some venues and attending others activities.

The rest of the LE 18 program was also quite intensive; Nadir and Soumeya (Awal) made two amazing performances with artists (poets and musicians) coming from Ait Bougmez, We have never been modern: Asnimer, plus some talks, Against Monoculture and Mono-Culture, based on their own research in rural areas near the High Atlas Mountains and Come, gather around! Amazigh music in Casablanca, by researcher Mohamed Oubenal. Sara Frikech’s talk on water infrastructures in Meknès (as a part of Qanat program), Thinking through infrastructure: water, hydraulics and French colonialism in Morocco. There was also time to gather with other collectives during the cooking session by Firas Hamdan, The Taste of Olives, or the one by Laila and Hicham where I met three Spanish curators that were surprised to see a Spanish in LE 18 credits in our indoor space. I couldn’t attend the concerts Abdellah Hassak (Guedra Guedra and Firas Hamdan gave during Meydan #2 I was so tired after the workshop… Last night there was a presentation of Safina (a program led by Amine and Elisa in Salé) and the concert of Gaouta (Sofia Fahli) a musician and graphic designer, Arabwave & drums. It was really great to meet  in our garage friends and artists, in fact, it was probably a real transposition of what LE 18 is in Kassel, a place for gathering and exchange as I could explain to Iswanto, Lara, Chiara, Lydia, Ole… all of them from documenta team. I was so happy to have found such a space for this purpose…

Credits texts, photos and drawings: Carlos Pérez Marín