It’s a great act. [Laughs]
But it feels good. It’s, like, signing that it’s really true what we have spoken about
the last two years.
You see, I would say in Europe, or a maybe worldwide context, free space is shrinking.
You have less and less free spaces, less and less wasteland, less and less cheap space,
or affordable places for projects like us, or for artists and for all that kind of stuff.
And our impression in the last ten years was gentrification was moving towards us. Houses
were built next to us. People wanted to buy our space, and we were kind of a little hopeless
to find another place to move to.
They approached us because they were looking for possibilities on how to differently use
cemetery space.
The cemetery is in, like, an emergency situation because you can't build on the land so they
can't sell most of it. The city says we don't want it as parks. So suddenly you have these
leftover, beautiful places like here
And it's really, like, a soil of a quality, which is absolutely brilliant for gardening.
They’re huge!
Oh yeah, that’s a big harvest.
They’re, like, monsters.
Look at this beautiful chard. Gorgeous.
They asked us if we wouldn't be interested to do a second garden at a cemetery at Prenzlauer
Berg. But at that point in time they were trying to rent out for a quite high price.
And we didn't have any money in 2011. We were just a very small organization with three
people. And we were a bit like, going like this. [00:07:45] And then, like, three years
ago we just went back to them.
And there
I met Ekkie.
So it’s those. Those are stones which have been removed, and instead of throwing them
away, we collected them. And we found an artist couple. How do you say it in English ... sculpturists?
[00:03:15] And they work them now as material.
I don't know how it is in other countries, but when in Germany someone is buried you
have to buy that grave for 20 years. So you kind of buy, pay rent for 20 years, and after
20 years you can normally decide, “Do I want to lengthen it, or not?” If you don't
want to lengthen it, then there's 10 years, by law, where nobody else can be buried at
that place, or nothing else can happen on it. For sure you have people who lengthen
the graves, who have family graves since hundreds of years and always lengthen them more and
more. That's a different way, but the minimum are these 30 years.
Just imagine. I mean, this is seventy five thousand square meters here. It's huge. You
have all these meadows, and there is one tombstone. One active grave here still, [00:19:01] and
all that space has to stay cemetery because of that one grave.
In about 30 years this place can stop being a cemetery. And then, there is this question
what happens afterwards? What is it going to be then? Our job is a little bit to stay
these 30 years here, and guide that place to whatever it's going to be afterwards. Is
it going to be a new form of garden? Are we going to buy it? Can we buy it? We got a little
time to find out, but it’s an interesting question.
It's really fresh and herby. I think they checked the soil before they
… Started growing something.
Don't think it’s haunted? It feels good to eat something locally grown.
It brings people together, yes. We didn’t know each other before. [00:01:14] It's a
special atmosphere.
You know, it's like a result. A little bit. Of one and a half years of preparation, which
we all did. And seeing now that people are happy here. The kitchen is always good, but
that most of the menu, most of
the vegetable from the menu, comes from the garden it’s just great.
We started very slow June last year. Had a look. Does it work? Talked to everybody who
comes in here. Be respectful with the people. Be respectful with the place.
One of our focuses is what you call agro-biodiversity. I think, [00:34:39] we have over 150 different
kinds of vegetables and herbs over there.
It's never just about gardening. Community gardens are always gardening plus something.
Urban community gardens are important because I think they're one of the few places in the
city where you can … where don't have to go along with a capitalistic logic. Where
you are freer. You can try out things they can go wrong. It's a free space. And it brings
people back to a very slow and natural way of dealing with that. You know, it's a vegetable,
and it slows you down. No matter if you're in stress or not that bloody carrot doesn't
grow faster.