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Introduction to “The Hill” on Mimersgade, Copenhagen

We want to build things for this neighborhood! The constructions should reflect our own ideas as well as ideas from people passing by. And do you have anything to suggest, by the way? You have to speak out if you want something, tell us…Though we wish to anticipate the best of everyone here; we expect some disagreement and opposition to arise. Actually, this might even turn out to be a basic feature of the daily routine on the construction site: explaining, dealing with these contradictions, but insisting in going on. Bring on the next idea, please.

It’s an experiment directed to supplement, or at least comment on, the very slow (and democratic, yes, yes, yes) urban planning process, 3 years or more from initiative to realization (see Simmel quotation in the bottom!) (So, this ended up being our major formal achievement: to draw attention to the weakness about this procedure and to point towards a way to improve it).

Here we are 6 days a week for 3 weeks, building for you, whatever you say; tomorrow! What’s going to happen? – we’ll see soon enough. Too much bother and we might have to modify things or eventually remove them. Anyway, it’s worth the try: we have to construct a way out of the problems.
As it turned out, yes, this was a task that involved demanding pedagogic efforts besides the job of construction. After school-time kids were everywhere, well, of course, it’s their hood. Kids who, in one way seem addicted to the chaos and excitement of being in a gang (or a mass), used to problems, conflicts (“I’ll call my bigger brother!”), but at the same time bringing their own a genuine energy and speed. Right now this energy is fueling one most the most radical forces of change in our society. If the word “avant-garde” (in both good and bad) should have a meaning this ambiguous current of creative destruction is not far from it.

So, woooh, some day where sunny and hectic, we even felt caught in the crossfire at times, headaches in the afternoon; and some days were rainy and thoughtful, with coffee-smelling conversations about the spirit of gypsy music and relaxed mid-evaluations mixed with more philosophical related questions from older residents.

We had been thinking about building an outdoor hillscape for a while. At first we were about to carry it out on one of Copenhagen’s main squares, but due to a bureaucratic delay of our plans we had a chance to reconsider. “Hey, isn’t it a little cheap just to add to what already nice and need?” “Boys, lets pick another place.”
And then, Christian Skovbjerg turned op with his “take a seat” –project and we joined forces and chose Mimersgade. We shared many interests with the others participating artists as well.

Once again the Arts Council from the Department of Culture of the Danish State supported us graciously and made us able to pay the some of the hours of work.

Here’s a quotation of the German Sociologist Georg Simmel whose thoughts should have been read aloud for us, Mimersgade-kids, local authorities, all of us in one big bed:

“…the deep estrangement or animosity which exists between organic and creative processes of the soul and its contents and products: the vibrating, restless life of the creative soul which develops toward the infinite contrasts with its fixed and ideally unchanging product and its uncanny feedback effect, which arrests and indeed rigidifies this liveliness. Frequently it appears as if creative movement of the soul was dying from its own products” (Georg Simmel “The conflict in Modern Culture”, 1921)
Hot stuff from 1921, lets talk more about the SOUL next time!