All the pictures can be found here: http://teml.nadine.be

Six month’s can come to an end so easily… On the 1st of february we celebrated a new year and a new residency.  bolwerK the housekeeper and curator, chose to name the house in the Rue Gallait:  The Ever Mass Land.

The Ever Mass Land rested on an open structure with a number of core links:

‘La Réünion’ made particular use of the penthouse where international artists were invited who are part of bolwerK’s network. It provided the time and space to go further into individual and collective interests within the current flux of work movements.

‘Platform 3′, the project that was aimed especially at direct action and radical exploration in the public urban space, developed, among other things, into The Ever Waste Land, a fallow ground behind the community centre De Kriekelaar. It led to various eco-artistic projects in a temporary (or permanent) autonomous zone.

Under the heading ‘Framing the Image,’ the Antwerp-based organisation Logement put the emphasis on the documentation of site-specific work and temporary projects. Their Brussels intervention is structured as a space for their first international production.

‘D’office’ emerged from the idea that a physically divided studio space with a reliable logistical infrastructure promotes the work dynamic.

This weekend we celebrate our Belgian national holiday and The Ever Mass Land.  A celebration of art, then, with a jam session, performance, music, library, storytelling, etc.  You can find the programm here.

We need 5 consecutive days of 25° Celsius of which 3 consecutive days of 30° Celsius to have a heat wave.
Well.., we’re not there yet, but we’re melting already.

To keep The Ever Waste Land fertile and healthy we’ve installed a big water tank in the garden.  Projects such as ‘spira-dye‘ by Bartaku, ‘Playground 0:1:1,2‘ by Isabelle Pauwelyn and ‘the Brave Little Forest’ by Bernard Leroy really needed that.

Spira-dye is a plant spiral that contains a selection of plants (mainly berries) with strong color dye used for the production of solar cells.

Playground 0:1:1,2 is an architectural intervention that opens urban space by gardening.  The aim is to create meeting places where people can come together in a temporary and ambiguous and ambiguous haven.  Where the projects lead to, is not that important.  The participants are outside. That’s enough in itself.  Here, the people can play in all earnest, and play with the earnestness, if necessary.

The Brave Little Forest wants to nurture 10 000 trees that had accidentally started growing in bad areas (for trees anyhow) such as in gutters or between the cracks in the concrete.  In The Ever Waste Land they can find home in a daycare where they can grow bigger and bigger until they will be planted elsewhere.

I propose a toast.  Here’s to them!

Did you know you can have black bees delivered at your doorstep by the Belgian Post?
Sounds like a fantastic way to annoy your postman!
But.. Christina Stadlbauer, who is working in the no-zone of nadine in Schaerbeek, decided she’s going to pick them up her self in Chimey… Too kind.

Within the Rue Gallait 80, currently called: The Ever Mass Land, a new project emerged: The Ever WASTEland. The Wasteland is an open ground open to ecological and social projects. It gives the opportunity to people, bees and ecosystems to actively intervene within.

One of these projects is Christina’s ‘Bzzz – Bees in Urban Space’. She has now installed beehives in 3 different locations in Brussels. The aim is to use the hives and their products as monitors of natural processes in the city.

So, the beehive installation is ready, the bees will be brought by personal taxi and then what? What else has been planned?

The observation can start, but not before we’ve done some good technical research into camera’s, microphones and registration devices. To further stress the sustainable character of the project and to make this whole observation and transmission independent, the installation of photo-voltaic panels for renewable energy supply is intended.

The observation will be put online soon, in the meantime you can check okno’s Open Green’s pages with the honeybee observatory.

By next year we’ll be eating a pot of city honey.
But… if no bees should survive this city life, we can conclude that no human beings shall live here in 20 years either.