For ›Shifting Grounds‹, artist Mascha Fehse, a frequent guest at PACT, is designing ›Recreational Successions‹ – a wandering spatial installation made of modular elements that will serve as a temporary meeting point and provide a source of shade and shelter for the audience. 

The artist refers to the so-called pioneer forest in her installation. Pioneer plants appear first in post-extractive landscapes: grasses, then shrubs like sea buckthorn, blackberry, elder and trees such as birch, willow, robinia or alder. They are the first to reoccupy the terrain, because they can settle on barren soils and their presence prepares these for subsequent species.

›Recreational Successions‹ conceives of the pioneer forest that covers the Zollverein slag heap as a giver of space and material. Appearing at various locations on the slag heap, the installation also refers to traditional nomadic forms of construction, which obtain the required materials from so-called undemanding, fast-growing plants. The individual, itinerant elements latch onto each other, supporting and negotiating their usage in interaction with the surrounding plants. In the temporary coexistence of slag heap and humanity, the installation questions the rebirth of the landscape and the human regeneration which goes hand in hand with it. What is being regenerated here by whom and for whom is regeneration created? 

Material: willow and robinia branches, birch twigs, birch trunks, aluminum profiles (precycled), rope, natural fiber material, hardware / connectors
 

Team: Ben Wesch, Nevo Bar, Helene Rehahn