My contribution to The Parthenon of Books

The Parthenon of Books - one of my favourite places in Kassel and perhaps the place I'll rather be than anywhere else. It's a majestic art work, a courageous project and the people's project. Because the banned books, the books from persecuted writers worldwide are donated by the us, because "we (all) are the people". 100.000 books are expected and there is still a way to go.

Except of having ice cream sitting on the stairs beside the books, today I did submit my contribution to this art work: Franz Kafka's Erzählungen. Kafka's books were banned during the National Socialism in Germany but also during the communist Czech Republic, although he had never directly criticized the political system or referred to real life situations. Nonetheless his works were described as "harmful and undesirable".

Thank you Jesús for capturing this moment :)

Want to donate a book? Find here the call for book donations.

Eine Performance für die Seele (A performance for the soul)

It's one of my favorite spots in Kassel, outside documenta as well: Kunsthochschule Kassel (the School of Fine Arts and Design).

During documenta the Research Laboratory for Experimental Building hosts an acoustic performance by Diego Jascalevich in Gernot Minke's earth dome: Earth - Sound - Space: Adobe Dome.

The Research Laboratory for Experimental Building at Kunsthochschule Kassel

The earth dome, built in 1992, is made of handmade, unfired adobe bricks following a new technique without framework developed in this research laboratory. It has a hight of 5 meters and a diameter of 7 meters.

Earth Dome, University of Kassel, 1992

When you enter the dome a relaxing silence welcomes you. Music coming from the top of the dome puts you in a dreaming, relaxed, meditative mode. Sounds you make are being heard very clear, though not very loud, but still a little unusual. It's best to sit there, when there are not so many people around (what could be hard during documenta, but I managed), even though it is fun to look on people's reactions :)

I call it a performance for the soul.

Favorite Spots

I've been a bit quite lately. Enjoy a late night view on the pantheon and the Friedericianum. I'll be back ;-)

Dear friends, come to Kassel! Now!

If you ever thought of visiting me, this is the time to do it. This is the city I want to show you: artistic, enthusiastic, vibrant and welcoming!

Everything is prepared, I'm well informed and looking very much forward to share and spend the following days with you.

And when it get's to much, we can relax, all together, under the sunny sky.

So? What do you say? 98 days left.

10 years later

The former underground main station in Kassel is open and it's hosting several sound and visual installations. At the same time it's telling a story itself: it opened in 1968, the year of documenta4 (the last documenta of inventor Arnold Bode) connecting the city to the region. It closed in 2005 (2 years before I arrived in Kassel). Since then regional teains are no more entering the city.

The view is quite desolate, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Getting back to the day light, I was in a totally new place for a while. I haven't been here before... until I walked few steps further. And suddenly it get's to me: it's Ottostraße! The building ahead of me is the house that accommodated me during my first 6 months in Kassel. Puji and Phuong, I hope you're reading this and remember our wonderful time here. I can't believe I walked in and out that house and never turned this way... well, it looked quite creepy. Luckily 10 years later documenta took me here. I'll come back.

The first of 100 days

It's official now: documenta14 has started. The press, politicians, protesters, art enthusiasts and the people of Kassel gathered for the first day of the most important 100 days since september 2012. I'm standing among the people and am listening to their memories from their first documenta, for some it was 5 years ago (like for me), for others it was more than 60 years ago. And they are all excited but it wouldn't be authentic if they wouldn't complain. There is too much police and too much security. Niw I understand the writing on Friedericianum "BEINGSAFEISSCARY".

The Parthenon of books looks like it always belonged here. I already can't imagine Friedrichsplatz without it.

Thank you Netcome for the free wifi in the city and thank you Lifeshift for the extra energy.

It's about the view

The location with the best view in Kassel makes the most of it during documenta14: floor14 at the rooftop of shopping centre "Galeria Kaufhof". 

It's open! And it's amazing! The view, the wind and the ice cream.

The interesting part is: nobody cares for Herkules anymore. Probably documenta effect :)

See you up there! Every day for 100 days.

The Press and the Public

Three days before the official start of documenta14, the press was allowed to have a first exploratory walk through some of the exhibits. One of Germany's most important newspaper, "Die Zeit", called their article "The wonder of Kassel" (Das Wunder von Kassel). Beautiful words about a city nobody really talks about for 4 years. And then documenta happens and the whole world gathers in the heart of Germany for 100 days.
The video below is nicely introducing the Parthenon of Books. Have a look:


I, the public, am still paciently waiting. I feel like a dog in a cage... I can see things are happening, things being build, but I don't know what it is and I can't reach to them... nobody knows, nobody can (except the press).
Meanwhile the garden in front ot the Campus Center is growing, getting greener and artistic.
I'm so excited and I just can't hide it tadam tam tam ;)

foodoctopia

The green part of d14

What I like most about documenta are the exhibits in parks and gardens throughout  the city. Every green spot is being turned into art. Well, I think nature itself is art, but many documenta artists are giving it a new touch or are giving their pieces a totally different story when in nature.

Tamoeta's Stories goes d14

We're almost set: our homes are clean, laundry is done, the fridge is filled... because who knows when we're gonna have time for all this in the upcoming 100 days.
The streets of Kassel are all new, the lawn is cut, the sunshine is ordered... because we're expecting many friends, relatives, acquaintances and friends of friends, all arts enthusiasts from all over the world.

Expiration Movement by Daniel Knorr

Most of the art pieces are finished and those which aren't yet, they need our support, like the Parthenon of Books. The art builders were doing an amazing job today, but it looks like they lack some more books.

So, when you're gonna visit me during the upcoming 100 days, make sure you bring one of these books with you and become party of the world's greatest exhibition of modern and contemporary art.

Parthenon of Books by Marta Minujín and Pierre Bal-Blanc

Beingsafeisscary by Banu Cennetoğlu

Look at this place...this place is right in front of my office building. So, before you get tired getting up those many stairs to my office, stop by here. You're definitely gonna find me there and at the same time you'll learn about food production and independent gardening initiatives from the region of Northern Hessen. A documenta14 garden! This is so much better than expected.

Projekt foodoctopia mit krisenKONTERKIOSK

 

5 more days until this counter will open! 5 more days of patience, excitement, curiosity... and did I mention patience? 

My 2013

has been a year of important life events, of decisions and change, a year of learning and discoveries and it has been a good year!

I learned a new sport. That's how I started my year, on a ski slope in central Austria, one of my favorite places. I liked skiing from the first moment. I still like it very much. I decided to spend my birthday skiing. It's been a wonderful 30th birthday  in Winterberg with dear friends, snow, lots of joy and lots of dutch people.

Entre estos dos viajes de esquí, tuve la oportunidad de aprender español en la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. It was a quick and one of the best decisions of this year. Being in Valencia for one week I learned the language good enough to enable me to order in the restaurant and in the store, to understand news on TV and to talk to the taxi driver. The fact that the taxi driver repeated everything I said, exactly the way I said it, showed me that I was right. When you learn a foreign language, it's never only about words and grammar, it's also about understanding the way people from other countries think, how they behave, what they eat and why they have certain eating behavior. That's why we also had the opportunity to take a cooking class in tapas, which I afterwards practiced in Kassel with my Phase 10 group ;) And I also learned that many Spanish people have a very strong opinion that German people solo trabajan - no fiesta, no siesta.

Valencia was also one of the 7 new cities I visited this year. Another one on this list was Murau (well, it is a little premature to say that, but I'm gonna go there today, and it still is 2013 ;)), Bratislava, Istanbul, Izmir, Nazilli and Didim. These added to my list make exactly 65 cities I've visited in my entire life, without cities in Romania, but including German cities.

The visit to Bratislava brought a also new country on my list of new visited countries, the 16th.

It's been a short visit to a very close neighboring country, close meaning similar: in history and the time was to short, but my feeling tells me that I would have found much more similarities to my own culture. This country looks pretty similar to Romania, Bratislava could be Cluj, but where I don't understand a word nor do I recognize the taste of the food. It is totally worth visiting and I am sure, I will go back to experience much more from everything it can offer.

It is pretty obvious that visiting 4 Turkish cities this year, must indicate that it was my first visit of the country. And it is right, country number 17 - checked (even though it is not a contest)!

I had the amazing chance to learn about Turkey which I knew mainly from history lessons in school or from the people I meet at Am Stern in Kassel. The cities I've visited were so wonderful, so impressive. There is so much diversity, so much tradition and so much modernism. I felt very comfortable, a little bit like home, but not quite home. Turkish people are very polite, they are helpful and their sense of humor is adorable. But I guess, when you feel very comfortable in one place you tend to call it home. Well, I wouldn't mind calling it home, since they anyway speak lots of my language and eat all Romanian food.

Ben Türkçe öğrenmeye başladı and I think I decided to learn the most difficult language of all. My goal is to be able to understand and speak with all lovely people from Nazilli when I go back in 2014. I would tell them that sarma is a Romanian dish and it's very delicious to eat it with polenta and sour cream and that şapcă, făraş and many more words are Romanian as well. And that the Ottomans took them when they were invited to visit our beloved country ;)

I not only discovered this year my Turkish roots, but also rediscovered my Saxon ones at the Transylvanian Saxons' meeting (Heimattag) in Dinkelsbühl. It takes place every year at pentecost in Dinkelsbühl.

Around 30.000 of over 250.000 Saxons who moved back to Germany in the late 80's gathered to remember and to revive traditions, which will never be forgotten. Our mother is the Saxon of the family, but we didn't quite practice back in Romania. I think it is a feeling you develop when you are far from home. Coming together with you country people is a good feeling. We, Alexandra, Marius and I, dressed in traditional costumes met very many people, we didn't think we would know. We even met the Saxons community from Kassel by chance and the Community of Saxons from the place where we used to live when we were kids.

Staying in touch with our country people was the motto of May. Our dear friend from childhood and his partner have a daughter. We, Alexandra, Marius and I, had the honor to become her God parents. That's how, this year I became God mother for the third time, but for the first time to a girl, Helena. I am so much looking forward to see her again over new year's holidays and to celebrate her first birthday mid January.

It feels like I was away for half of the year but I will return now to stories from northern Hessen, because there was so much more happening this year in Kassel...

I went to my first protest in the streets of Kassel, the warning strike of government employees for better working conditions and fair salaries.

Not that it had anything to do with the strike, but this year was good for work also. I got an extension of my work contract, what I think is a good sign because this is probably the best job I could have. My work is very divers and dynamic. It brings joy to me and to the people I work with, because every day we have the chance to help somebody. We also learn something new, further develop, share ideas and make them happen. This job is never exhausting, it is enriching.

One says that the year will be very much like New Years Eve. If you are happy at New Years Eve, you will be happy the whole year. Well, I remember being happy, but I also started my year with sports. That would probably mean that sports was supposed to be an important part of my life. Now, looking back and connecting the dots, it really was! I like biking and since we have this beautiful bike road along the river Fulda from Kassel to Hann. Münden, I joined the bikers group to travel by bike 57 km from Kassel to Hann. Münden and back in one day - it was so beautiful! And then I also joined the gym sometime June. I enjoy it very much and I feel great!

Despite of the fact that there was no dOCUMENTA, nor did any other unique event take place, I counted 12 visitors, friends and family, who enriched my life this year. I also learned a lot about my city which hosts me for the last 6 years and seems to host me some years longer. My people use to like it in Kassel (probably that's the reason they come back all the time) and I am always very happy to have them at my place.

© Alexandru Tanasel

We usually have lots of activities, like going to museums, enjoying the green areas in the city and around the city, visiting the neighboring cities, going to parties, markets, having BBQs, meeting friends, cooking, playing or even pimping up my apartment. 

Marius, my brother (I must say this, otherwise you will never learn his name), and Alexandra would also say, that I got myself a boat. It was not really mine (yet :D), but I spent lot's of time on the Uni Kassel Schiff. on Fulda this summer. 

With my visitors from August we had quite a different experience. One experience that was so unexpected beautiful, that we had to live it again few weeks later. Glen Hansard had a concert at Kulturzelt Kassel. I won't talk about this any longer, because I think everybody knows by now everything about it. For all the others my post from August 24th. In November it ws again Glen time at the Crossing Border Festival in Enschede. There was magic and magic reloaded. Their shows are breathtaking, like we've never seen before.

The end of November in the Netherlands is also the time when Sinterklaas comes with the boat from Spain. And guess what, I met him in Almelo.

I don't know if it was Sinterklaas or any other supreme power, but shortly before the year came to an end, a long term wish was fulfilled and I moved to my new apartment, one that I like so much, that I am always looking forward to coming home. Many dear friends helped me moving and I am very thankful for that. Without them neither would my moving have worked out so perfectly nor had my year turned out so great!

I thank you all who enrich my life every day. At this very special time of the year, I hope that every person in this world has a good moment to think of. There is lots of anger and disrespect in the world but also light and hope, and we need to learn to see the light and let hope show us the way.

I wish you all a very special new year. May you have the opportunity to learn a lot, to share your ideas and to believe that something good can happen every day. May your work make a difference and enrich your life and the life of others.

Happy New Year!

People always leave...except when they don’t

or about passing through.

I’m used to the fact that people who visit me in Kassel enjoy their time very much (at least that’s what they tell me) and I am always very happy to have them at my place. I don’t know, it’s something about this place that makes everything perfect. Usually they don’t stay very long, one weekend, maybe one day longer. But this one time was different.

It happened that my recent guests, my friends from the Netherlands, as I use to introduce them, came for the Zissel weekend and ... stayed and stayed and stayed for about ten days. So I was like: mi casa es su casa, mi amigos son sus amigos (hope my Spanish lessons were worth it). We had a great time, we visited lots of places, went on boats, celebrated the water sports, made BBQs, went out quite many nights, visited the rivers and woods around Kassel, had lunch with the neighbors... But one activity on the last day was so unexpected beautiful, so beautiful that I wasn't able to write about it until now.  

There is this music event in Kassel. It takes place every summer for 8 weeks in a tent next to the Fulda river. It’s a beautiful atmosphere. We learned from a friend that Glen Hansard, an artist with skin and hair, as the organizers called him, will have a concert at Kulturzelt Kassel on August 11. Glen Hansard in Kassel??? Not for real, right? Yep, it was him! Since we soon also learned that it was AUSVERKAUFT, we thought, ok, we're not gonna see him live, but we will listen to the concert from the Biergarten outside. When we were very confortable with this plan, what happend on the day of the concert? Tickets still available on site. We rush there 3 hours before the concert starts and are the first in line. We listen to Glen during the sound check and cannot believe it yet, that we will actually see him life.

And there we were, at 19:30 we’re inside the tent, Glen and the Frames come and what happened next was breathtaking, mind blowing, simply amazing!! It was a show like we've never seen before. It was a concert like we've never been before to. These people are artists one should not miss to see. If you haven’t been to a Glen Hansard concert, you haven’t been to a great concert. 

“It was magic” said Rob while signing our CD.

I'm still there and I think I'm not gonna be leaving soon. And if you'd like to have a very tiny small impression on how it was, check out the video below:

CROS

Cu ocazia împlinirii a 5 ani de când am venit la Kassel mi-am amintit cu drag de vremurile de acum 5 ani și de motivele care m-au mișcat să mă mobilizez la Kassel. Începusem să scriu draftul cu vreo două sătămâni înainte de publicare și pe parcurs am citit un articol care cred că m-a motivat să mă scufund mai mult în amintirile de demult. Citisem  un interviu despre începuturile CROS pe blogul Friends for Friends Foundation. În timp ce scriam, mi-am notat niște idei pe care vroiam să le scriu despre CROS. 

E extraordinar ce fac cei de la CROS. Cinci ani... cinci ani în care de fiecare dată când îi întâlnesc sau de fiecare dată când citesc despre ei mă încântă cu ideile lor, cu viziunea lor, cu motivația și dedicația cu care lucrează înspre împlinirea viselor despre o Românie a viitorului. Mă încântă și în același timp îmi dau deseori porția de motivație de care am nevoie. Învăț de la CROS de la multe sute de kilometrii departare și ori de câte ori am ocazia scriu despre ei pentru a-mi potoli dorul.

Prietenii mei de la CROS conduc astăzi cu success revoluția educației în România (și poate nu doar în România). Pun bazele unei universități a viitorului și abia aștept să am ocazia de a-i vizita la deschiderea anului universitar alternativ întrun viitor foarte apropiat.

Fingers CROSsed! ;)

I came to Kassel for one year... five years ago

It was a time when me and my friends from ANOSR and ASPR were instigating against the Romanian higher education system. It was bad and we wanted it to be better. We wanted our education to be relevant for our future, we wanted to learn, to develop and to be able to do what we like to do and what we're good at. So we thought we fix it. We found the Bologna Process a good tool for that, so we took it. Since there was no higher education reform in Romania for the past 40 years, this couldn't go wrong. We started at the bottom. I guess my friends who led the whole movement tried before from the top, but you can't really change something where people think nothing's wrong. Ministers, rectors, deans... they were happy. So we went to the others who were not or who soon learned that they were not. During the so called Bologna week we informed students and teachers about how it could be, we researched and presented solutions and scratches from an education model which seemed rather attractive. We knew quite much about student centered learning and we we based everything on that.

I've been just coming back from Ludwigsburg in Germany, where I've spent a semester studying abroad. It was then my last year of my bachelors studies and the year was going to be extraordinary... I know it now, but I learned soon enough that it will change my life. I've been traveling a lot all around Romania and abroad, learning and later teaching others about education, about their role and responsibility in their own education and about decision making, about things you like to do in your life and about passion (it's just that at that time we did not really formulate it like this... but it was exactly that).

At some point, it was my turn. I did everything I could and I knew, I learned and I taught, I developed and helped others to develop. Working with these young enthusiastic people was amazing and I decided that higher education is what I am going to do.  I was aiming high but I knew I need to continue learning and the environment at that time could not offer me everything I needed to know... it was just not enough to keep my arguments up. So I started looking... where can I become more knowledgeable in the area of higher education? Google it! 

This was in spring 2007, when I googled for a Master in Higher Education. And guess what, among the first hits was the International Master Programme in Higher Education in Kassel...

... and that's how it all started.

I wrote my application:

"(...) My future plans for my professional career are also in the area of higher education. I want to be teacher at one University in Europe, at the department for educational science, but in the same time I want to continue to do research in higher education and higher education reforms and to involve students as well in doing research during their bachelor studies. I would also like to work in the department for university development and improvement of educational policies and strategies. My course of educational policies during my studies, but also the research I started for my theses brought me much closer to this area, which makes me more curious about it. (...) I can say that this Master Programme is the possibility which opens the ways for my wishes and plans and helps me and the students and researchers I will work with to improve education in Romania and, why not, in Europe." (Statement of objectives, 2007)

And yes, they took me!

I arrived in Kassel on October 1st 2007; my Persian tutor waited for me in front of my building in Ottostraße 1, opposite to the Police building, next to the National Employment Agency, where I was going to live with an Indonesian and a Vietnamese girl from my international masters programme. 

And here I was, starting my new life chapter in an international setting like I never experienced before. 

I need to tell you a story from my first day on campus: This international programme felt like something really special to me and somehow I had the impression that these students will be the only international students in Kassel. So on my first day on campus, the first student who came to me to ask me for directions was an international one, speaking only English. So what do I think... he studies higher education. And I ask him that. And of course he says he studies higher education, because for those who do not know the master programme, everybody studies higher education in a university. So when I stared chatting with him about home country, living area and reading materials, he tells me he studies something else and I am totally confused... hmmm, there are more like me? Later that day I visit the language center with my new flat mate. She wants to register for a German language course and I wait for her on the corridor. One student gets out of the registration office and she gets in. What do I do? "Are you studying higher education?" And he says yes. Luckily this time it was really a student of my master programme. We started talking about our countries - he was from Oman - about the masters programme and spent the whole day shopping and walking through Kassel. That way I had no chance to kidnap other students on Campus with my weird question "Do you study higher education?", but according to my experience that day, I could have concluded that 50% of international students on Campus were from MAHE :)

Meanwhile I finished my masters (after 3 years and 3 months) and became one of the few qualified higher education researchers in Europe. I've been tutoring international students almost the whole time during my studies, which was probably one of the most exciting things I've ever done, after being a kindergarten teacher and instigating against the Romanian higher education system. I've been working in a world renown institute for higher education research for long time as a research assistant and later as a - guess what - higher education researcher. I've learned so much about research methodology that it often makes me feel like a nerd. Today I work as a higher education professional in the International Office of the university and coordinate, improve and develop the support services for international students. I love my work...it's challenging, it's new, it gives me the possibility to be flexible and creative, to develop new stuff, to help students to find their way. I have an amazing team and some really great colleagues. 

I made many very good friends... some of them still here, some others very far away, back to their home countries or elsewhere... but that's the deal with making international friends, they are not gonna stay here forever, but you can always visit them in all parts of the world, like Almelo in The Netherlands, Brussels, Geneva, Barcelona, or even India. And when I don't do that, I spend time with my Kasseler, Kasselaner and Kasseläner friends or with my imaginary friends. When I want to be spontaneous, I travel to Vienna to visit my brother and Alexandra (and Eusebiu, the imaginary dog) or my König-family in Nürnberg and Stuttgart, that when I don't travel to Berlin, Bielefeld, Dresden, or my favorite city, Bonn. Meanwhile I became Godmother of my cousin, René, and recently Tante of little Peter Casimir, son of my very best roomie.

Long story short... I like it here, it has become my home (like the newly received gift for my fifth anniversary indicates) and when it gets complicated I eat an "Ausdauer"-candy (these Germans have everything... really)

Grüße aus Kassel ;)

Read also:
"Ce pot eu pentru asta?" (in Romanian)  

4.Y.i.K. (in English) 

Und alles nochmal auf Deutsch (in German)
New home, new people, new world … nice home, nice people, nice world (in Romanian)