October 2020 to November 2022
in Kempten and the Allgäu region
Funding Programme: Fonds hoch3 | German Federal Cultural Foundation
Project lead and partners: Stadtbibliothek Kempten, Kulturamt Kempten, Sonthofen und Markt Wertach, Deutsche Selbald Gesellschaft
Susa Pop |Public Art Lab and the nature writer Michaela Vieser developed the concept of the Living Library for Nature Writing together with the Stadtbibliothek and the Kulturamt Kempten to rethink the role of a public library as a place of encounter and living space that consciously responds to pressing social, cultural and ecological issues.
The Living Library for Nature Writing will investigate how libraries can become vibrant cultural venues for cross-generational civic participation that address one of the most important issues of our time; climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Based in the Allgäu region, and in regional cooperation with the Sonthofen City Library and the Wertach Library, the Kempten City Library will establish a LIVING LIBRARY that will take on the role of ‘green cultural mediator’ with the methodology of nature writing and digital placemaking.
The programme will include Nature Writing Salons and a Nature Writing Camp, a Library of the Things and the Networked Library.
Green Salons
In the Green Salons people talk about the phenomena of nature, which they personally and passionately explore. The Green Salons are dedicated to the themes of a curated timeline:
Green Salon – Geological Time – 7 May | 5- 8.30 pm
About stones and stars – Walking from star ttime to deep time with Michael F. Schneider
Green Salon – Culture Time – 29 May | 10-2 pm
From herbs to birds: a healthy garden is a singing garden with Gerti Epple and Thomas Blodau
Green Salon – Living Time – 24 June | 4-7 pm
From the energy house to the energy ecosystem on earth with Martin Sambale and Thomas Weiß
Green Salon – Technological Time – 25 June |4-7 pm
About climate trees and tree spirits with S. Fischer-Rizzi
Reading and Writing Camp
It takes place in the Archaeological Park Cambodunum (APC). In four workshops Nature Writing methods will be introduced. What do I learn about myself when I observe nature? How can Nature Writing contribute to nature and climate protection?
10 – 12 June 2022
Networked Libraries for Nature Writing
This is the final event of the Living Library for Nature Writing.
As part of KunstNacht Kempten 2022, the libraries in Sonthofen and Wertach will engage in real-time exchanges with the Kempten City Library using projected texts and messages.
24 September 2022 | City Hall – 7.30- midnight
Solastalgia
How has the Allgäu changed in the span of a human lifetime? What do we miss from the former understanding of nature,
what would we like to show to our grandchildren again?
Contemporary witnesses speak out in a in a podcast.
https://bibliothek.kempten.de/solastalgia
Library of Things
It enables everyone to become a observer
of nature, discoverer of nature, and collector of knowledge: binoculars to get close to the wide open spaces, magnifying glasses to discover small details, telescopes to count the stars, small weather stations for your own recordings, digital and analog recording devices for bird calls and other sounds of nature, herbariums, and many other interesting items are now available for loan at the Kempten City Library.
See more at German Federal Foundation
