Suddenly, there was in the historical Kantorhaus an artist studio. The haus became for a while an open space, that allowed encounters between the citizens and the artist. She stayed there 6 months and offer the community the possibility to co-create a portray of their city. Alonso was every week at her market stand in the city center, where she was making contacts with the locals. She encourage them to be co-authors of a painting serie, that should represent the essence of their community and the life in the city. The participants decided which motifs she should paint and explained why, while the artist translated the topics visually in her painting language. This project looks for intersections between individual personal narratives and the historical context of the place. All the original paintings could be seen in Kantorhaus, the oldest haus and historic monument of the city. A selection was shown in a big format as wall-installation in Heeresbekleidungsamt, a complex of old communist barracks in the city surroundings
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This project is a collaboration between Elena Alonso Fernández, Kontext-Labor-Bernau, City Bernua, University of Arts Berlin (UdK) and 24 citizens of Bernau: Veronika Plank, Petra Stolle, Renate Harder, Heinz Reinl, Manfred Schöpe, the menbers of the sport association (Marianne Fincke, Sabine Schade, Erika Medow, Gisela Zschech, Ingrid Janisch, Irmgard Strömann, Elke Koch, Sabine Schmalz, Bärbel Hartwig,Monika Bludau, Elke Gebhardt, Irene Becker, Roswitha Engelhardt and Marianna Zeiser), the members of the bobbin lace association von AWO (Sigrid Pulfer, Ursula Roch, Heide Müller, Bärbel Gerold, Maria Lessing and Brigitte Teuber), Brigitte Albrecht, Regina Scholz and Dieter Pohl.
Further information at: http://lassmichdeinspiegelwerdenbernau.tumblr.com/
