Ein Fundstück is the titel Till Krause has given to the five sheets he pulled out of a pile of bulky waste in Bullenhausen, a village near Harburg, and on which his edition is based. The sheets contain a text with the title “Transcript from the papers of my great-grandmother Natalie Liebknecht. A forgotten passage from William Morris’ News from Nowhere.
Krause attempts to reconstruct the origin of the text: There is little to be found on the internet about Natalie Liebknecht (1835-1909). Her life was closely connected to the early socialist movement of the 19th century. Together with Clara Steinitz, Liebknecht translated Morris’ novel News from Nowhere – an idyllic dream of a future society after the communist revolution – into German at the end of the 19th century.
At first, the text seems to be about an trivial walk, but it quickly develops into strange descriptions and thoughts. A forgotten passage of the novel, according to the manuscript. Forgotten by whom? By William Morris? By the translators? There is no such or similar passage either in the known publications or in accessible manuscripts by William Morris.
Forgotten and then, of all places, this find reappears in Bullenhausen. Bullenhausen is part of an area along the Süderelbe that was declared a Free River Zone (Freie Flusszone) in 2011. Till Krause is known for projects that examine the relationship between city, landscape and social use and seek loopholes in financialized structures. The Freie Flusszone Süderelbe, initiated by Krause in 2011, questions the economic use of the Süderelbe and drafts visions for an alternative, community-oriented landscape design – paired with the hypothetical thesis of closing it for inland shipping.
This text made its way to Bremen on the occasion of a walk in the Bürgerpark, to which Annelie Käsmayr, Doris Weinberger and the GAK had invited. The Bürgerpark is a place where similar questions can be asked. Would it be possible to restore the Bürgerweide to its orginal form and renaturalize it as a commons? And in addition to the largely privately financed park, which is used for relaxation by the urban community, would it also be possible to re-envision a communally managed urban-rural space, conceived in terms of universal equality and the symbiotic aspects of humans, animals and plants? While reading this find, it is certainly wonderful to think about these questions.
Initially a gift for the participants of the walk, the remaining copies of Ein Fundstück are now available as an edition for the benefit of the GAK.
Till Krause
Ein Fundstück, 2023
5 A4 sheets and envelope
c-print
Edition of 25, 6 available
Euro 250,– (incl. VAT)