BEWARE, Utopia! This artistic work sees itself as a documentation of the ideas and visions of people in and around the village community Flegessen, Hasperde and Klein Süntel (FHKS). At the same time it shows the desire to actively shape one’s own living environment. InspirationsDORF is expressly not intended as a perfect, comprehensive guide to a sustainable village. Rather, this work is intended to be an encourager, instigator and playful means of expression.
The concept is transferable. It is meant to be processual, experimental, and invites co-signing, co-thinking, co-writing, and co-dreaming. The timeline begins in 2012 as the year of the formation of an overarching movement of committed citizens that had previously emerged from the common struggle to preserve the elementary school. The editorial deadline provides the starting point for the future. All subsequent messages are fictitious. The various institutions, associations, actors, movements, competitions, foundations, prizes, awards and much more really exist, but their actions in the future are purely fictitious.
In this one possible version of the future, the village community develops into the year 2035 into a successful mixture of projects oriented towards the common good, which work together on the challenges of the 21st century in a way that is close to everyday life and practice-oriented.
FLEGESSEN, HASPERDE and KLEIN SÜNTEL Here, a traditionally high level of commitment and lively associations are combined with a warm community and innovative ways of collective village development “from below”. The villagers pull together, take the shaping of future viability into their own hands and experience this kind of community work as an immediate increase in the quality of life. The youngest children grow up among them, in the kindergarten and the village elementary school. In the self-financed, self-built and self-operated organic market, they provide themselves with high-quality food at low prices. They inform and network with each other in the newspaper they have created themselves. In the village cinema, they enjoy comedies, documentaries, dramas or their own productions from their film club. Old and young teach and learn together in the village high school, make music in the band and music club, play sports in the local football club, shoot in the shooting club, cultivate their homeland and culture in the traffic and beautification association, are involved in the local Red Cross association, church community or voluntary fire departments, or sing together in one of the three choirs. At village festivals, they enjoy good company and locally brewed beer. And in keeping with the concept of a “potential development community,” they constantly take great pleasure in “spinning” new ideas for the further development of the villages.
One thing is certain: Anyone who is interested in civic engagement, non-partisan and innovative thinking, long-term oriented design, lively warm-hearted community and sustainable-conscious living in harmony with nature will feel at home here. At the same time, they do not want to be or become an eco-village, but to develop a new understanding of “normal”. As a “normal village” they would like to contribute to the fact that the effort for an environmentally protective, public welfare-oriented and grandchild-friendly lifestyle will be accepted and implemented as a matter of course in our society in the future.
Project Team: Grit Koalick, Marga Leuthe & Maria Trunk
