Weiche WohnWelten
(Soft Living Worlds)
Installation / performative walk
Photo: „Soft Architecture“ Exhibition / Showroom Finstral Augsburg / 2018
this is the body that wraps the top load
that takes its bearings from the visual axis
that reaches the extension that connects to the navel
that controls the immune system
that muddles the building site that takes cover in the armpit
while the property bubbles rise as if they were thoughts …
snippet poem 01/16 Ulrike Bernard & Vincent Grunwald
1/10
Photos: Ebba Fransén Waldhör, Dorothea Tuch / HAU Berlin / 2019
Benno Obkircher / WW South Tyrol / 2016
Ulrike Bernard / Das Archipel Hamburg / 2019
Ulrike Bernard / „Soft Architecture“ Exhibition / Showroom Finstral Augsburg / 2018
By slouching in beanbags (Lazy Bags) printed with images of real estate, visitors can leave an imprint with their bodies, shaping the beanbags. The material for this work comes from the streets of Berlin: where there was once a construction site banner, there is now an empty space. What was once an investment becomes a fleeting and soft asset in the form of a beanbag. Lounging together on the beanbags, visitors can participate in initiatives for a commons-oriented urban policy, enjoy a picnic outside or immerse themselves in readings and concerts.
The Lazy Bags are usually filled with organic material such as straw and hay for each context in which they are exhibited. This often leads initially to farmers, and then to the local city zoo to pass the filling material on to other living creatures. Although this local circular economy of materials takes place behind the scenes, it is an essential part of the work.
Photo: Wuan Wandeln – Exhibition & Setting for book presentation / sign, CIAT Berlin / 2019
The Weiche WohnWelten were created in collaboration with Vincent Grunwald and have appeared in various contexts since 2016: as a fleeting form of propertyreal estate within the performative walk WW / South Tyrol (2016);, as a soft installation – presented with the snippet poems as floor stickers – in the exhibition ‘Soft Architecture’ at Finstral Studio, Friedberg (2017/18) and within ‘Transgressive – Non-conformist Approaches to the Arts and the City’ at Kühlhaus Berlin (2022);, as a setting for the book presentation and reading of Wuan Wandeln at sign, CIAT, Berlin (2019); & at Das Archipel, Hamburg (2019), as an event setting for the festival Berlin bleibt, Hau, Berlin (2019) and for Claiming Common Spaces III, a project of the Alliance of International Production Houses – Kampnagel, Hamburg (2021).