From Open-Pit Mine to a Lakeland – A Bus Tour Through the Rhenish Mining Area and Its Visions for the Future
Dates:
Fri 08.05.26
13:00
Tickets
When purchasing tickets, you have the option of choosing between four different price categories based on your own assessment:
- Minimum price
- Reduced price
- Regular price
- Supporter price
Prices within these categories vary depending on the services included in the ticket.
Furthermore, we offer a number of free tickets so that everyone can participate, regardless of their income. Simply contact us or send us an email to service@pact-zollverein.de.
Meeting point Bus tour
Meeting point is at 12:40 p.m. at PACT Zollverein. The bus tour starts at 1 p.m. After the event, return transport by bus is provided to Essen Central Station.
Language
Spoken English
Duration
The trip lasts about 6 hours in total.
Practical information
Please wear sturdy shoes that meets your personal needs for a day trip. We recommend wearing weather-appropriate clothing and bringing sunscreen and a hat.
The event will take place even if it rains. In case of rain, we will provide rain ponchos.
There are no food or beverage options on site or in the surrounding area. Please bring plenty of your own food and drinks.
© Stefan Hilterhaus
The tour into the Rhenish Mining area takes us through a torn-up landscape between lignite mining future promises. Where the massive pit of the Hambach surface mine still stands today, a new lakeland is set to emerge in the coming decades – one rich in ecological, economic, and tourist potential.
The tour looks at this promised future – and at the reality on the ground. In Elsdorf, Manheim, and Bürgewald, we meet people, including artist Silke Schatz and landscape and open space planner Daniela Karow-Kluge, who are planning, accompanying, or questioning this structural transformation. In this way, the region becomes tangible as a contested space – and the question becomes urgent: what is to become of this landscape, and who decides?
Dates:
Fri 08.05.26
13:00
Tickets
When purchasing tickets, you have the option of choosing between four different price categories based on your own assessment:
- Minimum price
- Reduced price
- Regular price
- Supporter price
Prices within these categories vary depending on the services included in the ticket.
Furthermore, we offer a number of free tickets so that everyone can participate, regardless of their income. Simply contact us or send us an email to service@pact-zollverein.de.
Meeting point Bus tour
Meeting point is at 12:40 p.m. at PACT Zollverein. The bus tour starts at 1 p.m. After the event, return transport by bus is provided to Essen Central Station.
Language
Spoken English
Duration
The trip lasts about 6 hours in total.
Practical information
Please wear sturdy shoes that meets your personal needs for a day trip. We recommend wearing weather-appropriate clothing and bringing sunscreen and a hat.
The event will take place even if it rains. In case of rain, we will provide rain ponchos.
There are no food or beverage options on site or in the surrounding area. Please bring plenty of your own food and drinks.
PROGRAMME
1st Stop / Elsdorf (Terra Nova I Viewpoint)
2nd Stop / Manheim
Silke Schatz – ›Manheim calling walk – the plants in view‹
Silke Schatz explores places and their histories, often with a particular focus on architecture as a mirror of certain inherent socio-political conditions and climates. In her current series of works, ›Manheim calling‹, which started in the summer of 2021, Silke Schatz visited the village of Manheim, possibly one of the last villages to be destroyed due to lignite mining in the Rhineland Region of Germany. Since 2022, Silke Schatz has organized a total of 12 walks with various participants from museums and universities. She guides people through changing places, seeking to highlight the educational aspect – which focuses primarily on ruderal vegetation – while also telling the history of a place, alongside works created in this context that have been and will be exhibited in museums, collections, and galleries. The walk on May 8 will be the first of its kind in 2026.
Silke Schatz works across different media, creating drawings, sculptures, and installations. She studied at the Braunschweig University of Art and the School, where she was a student of Thomas Huber, among others, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Schatz’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at Manifesta 5 (San Sebastián), the Project Arts Centre (Dublin), the Armand Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), and the Galeria Fortes Vilaça (São Paulo). More recently, her works have been shown at the Triennale Kleinplastik Fellbach, the Ludwig Forum Aachen, and the Galerie Meyer Riegger. In 2021, she presented ›Manheim calling‹ as a solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus NRW.
Silke Schatz works across different media, creating drawings, sculptures, and installations. She studied at the Braunschweig University of Art and the School, where she was a student of Thomas Huber, among others, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Schatz’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at Manifesta 5 (San Sebastián), the Project Arts Centre (Dublin), the Armand Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), and the Galeria Fortes Vilaça (São Paulo). More recently, her works have been shown at the Triennale Kleinplastik Fellbach, the Ludwig Forum Aachen, and the Galerie Meyer Riegger. In 2021, she presented ›Manheim calling‹ as a solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus NRW.
© Hubert Perschke
3rd Stop / Bürgewald
Daniela Karow-Kluge – ›Starting Points and Pioneers of Change‹
Since 2023, ›tu! Hambach‹ has been held annually as a platform for dialogue in the former open-pit mining village of Bürgewald and its surroundings. It is an innovative format for collaborative and transdisciplinary learning, design, and joint action aimed at sustainable structural change. The event showcases projects, ideas, pioneers, and educational formats that can serve as starting points and spaces for resonance for change.
Daniela Karow-Kluge, a landscape and open space planner, is a research associate at the Chair of Planning Theory and Urban Development and at the Institute of Landscape Architecture at RWTH Aachen. She researches and designs co-creative transformation processes as well as urban and landscape conversion practices at the intersection of research, teaching, and practice.
Daniela Karow-Kluge, a landscape and open space planner, is a research associate at the Chair of Planning Theory and Urban Development and at the Institute of Landscape Architecture at RWTH Aachen. She researches and designs co-creative transformation processes as well as urban and landscape conversion practices at the intersection of research, teaching, and practice.
Daniela Karow-Kluge © Friederike Fugmann
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