Where Is My Shelter? Explained
What on earth is this all about?
"Where is my Shelter?" (Wo ist meine zeltbahn?) is an environmental art project that reinforces our intuitive attachment to the environment through mimicry. The result:
- Work that blends the wearer in its mimetic environment.
- Utilises recycled materials.
- Work that when displayed, acts as a metaphor for the shelter we receive by working with nature and strengthens our relationship with the natural world.
- Shows the potential for co-operation, and the assimilation of European history and identity as a shared experience.
It’s a way to be actively involved in our environment, instead of just being an issue we hear about from time to time. To a certain degree, environmentalism lies dormant in us all; it just needs a bit of gentle encouragement to take some action. It is about getting everyone, including people who do not see how they can relate to nature, to cultivate sensitivity to our own environment.
What does the title mean?
Wo ist meine Zeltbahn?’ is roughly translated from German into English as “Where is my Shelter?” In German it plays on the idea of natural camouflage and being hidden amongst your surrounding, (as a zeltbahn is a specific form of shelter) . The phrase shifts in meaning when translated therefore requiring continual questioning and dialogue. The title is a starting point to link our history, culture, relationship to one another through nature and to provoke discussion, whilst still asking the question ‘Where is my Shelter?’
What do I get out of working with the project?
- Through being more actively involved in environmentalism, it’s the next step up from understanding the issues.
- Making friends internationally and strengthening relationships with the rest of Europe through a shared interest.
- The countless possibilities available through being involved in an ongoing creative project with meaning, specific to your own personal requirements.
How can you help?
‘Where is my shelter?’ workshops have been running in several schools now, resulting in some fantastic collaborative art pieces being produced. Recently, we have taken these art pieces created by school children in the Midlands and displayed them in a touring capacity in some of the country’s best-known festivals. Over the summer, the ‘Where is my shelter?’ project has visited The Thames festival, in the form of a real life shelter housing artwork relating to the project. In 2008 a Peace picnic was held in Belozem, Bulgaria to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the ‘Iron Curtain’. In which a school from Stoke-on-Trent twinned with a school in Bulgaria, painted plates to be used as part of the picnic. We have some new exciting ‘Where is my shelter?’ projects in the pipeline, including an environmental exchange scheme, twinning schools from both the UK and various European countries. If you want this project to be part of your promotion of the European Greenbelt and to have your local communities’ involvement, I need your help.