Guided tour in dialogue with Anna Witt and Marike Schreiber / Wasserempfang [water reception] and conversation with Marike Schreiber, Reinhard Dalchow and Björn Kröger

The last public event of SALT. CLAY. ROCK during the finissage will revive the format of the Umweltsonntag (Environmental Sunday) – a series of events hosted by a group of environmental activist in the 1980ies in Brandenburg. The Umweltsonntag will bring into dialogue environmental activism from the former East and former West.

Anna Witt’s two-part video installation “Dance on the Volcano” takes its starting point in Wendland, where the community of Gorleben became a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement and one of the focal points of the debate on the use of nuclear energy in the Federal Republic of Germany. For SALT. CLAY. ROCK. Anna Witt investigates how collective forms of protest have inscribed themselves into the bodies and biographies of activists and their families over generations, for which she conducted research in the Gorleben Archive, among other places.

For SALT. CLAY. ROCK., the artist Marike Schreiber was interested in the entanglements of the Rheinsberg nuclear power plant, the first nuclear power plant in the GDR, with the surrounding Stechlin nature reserve and connects the two through Lake Stechlin. The lake played a key role as the “cooling plant” of the power plant and has been studied by researchers since the late 19th century until today. On September 8, Marike and the SALT. CLAY. ROCK. working group invited visitors to an artist led field trip to the aforementioned locations.

Together with Marike Schreiber and her guests, the format of the Umweltsonntag (Environmental Sunday) will be revived and an invitation extended to gather for a water reception at the mobile bar/sculpture designed by Marike Schreiber. The reception refers to the “Umweltsonntage” series of events co-initiated by the pastor Reinhard Dalchow, in the 1980s, which called for an open debate on the protection of the environment and the consequences of energy production in the GDR. At the first meeting, attention was drawn to the importance of clean drinking water with a “water reception” in the church. Another guest is Björn Kröger. The palaeontologist and curator at the Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki grew up on Lake Stechlin in the Mark Brandenburg. His first job was as a machinist for nuclear power plants. Today he researches changes in ecosystems on large and small temporal scales and specializes in the evolution of prehistoric cephalopods. He will soon be publishing a book chapter on “The Deep Time of Death” in the “Handbook of Queer Death Studies” at Routledge and a book on Lake Stechlin at Matthes & Seitz Verlag.