At the beginning of March, stadt.land.text regional writer Charlotte Krafft had to break off her residency in Münsterland due to illness and corona. She has now been back since mid-May, her first stops: Dülmen and Warendorf. In the interview, she talks about the bustling cultural scene in the countryside, aching bicycle saddles and the relationship between nature and culture.
What was it like for you to have to leave your residency early in March?
To be honest, I was thinking less about my residency and the project at the time and more about my health. And after my illness or during the convalescence phase, I was quite happy to be with my family and friends. The regret came later, when I was feeling better, but I didn't dwell on it for long, but tried to make the best of the situation.
How did you deal with the Münsterland from your home in Berlin?
Yes, this making the best of the situation consisted, on the one hand, of an appeal to the people of Münsterland to help me get to know the region, through suggestions, hints, stories, etc. That was quite fruitful. That was quite fruitful. I also did a lot of research, especially online. I was particularly taken with the brochure "Preserving Cultural Landscape Development in the Münsterland" by the LWL and the documentation "Münsterland Park Landscape 2.0" on the Regionale 2016. Sounds dry, it is! But nevertheless interesting, once you have started to deal with the topic of landscape development and planning. In the documentation, for example, Hermann Grömping writes and pretty much sums up what I also try to say in my texts:
"One must be clear that the annex lists of European directives cement a historical snapshot in landscape history and ignore the constant coming and going of species. As long as the social consensus wants it and the momentum of populations allows it, the generational contract holds. However, development is hardly conceivable without dynamics. The dynamisation of systems would be possible without compromising European nature conservation goals."
What response has your online appeal received?
A total of thirty-five messages landed in my inbox, not including spam. In the meantime, I was almost a bit overwhelmed by the amount of ideas and hints that reached me. But I also had the ambition to think about each of these ideas and hints, to consider whether and how I could use them - whether it was strawberry jam, women's shooters, weed-killing field robots or the Oelde Pentecost wreath. And of course I wanted to at least reply to everyone who wrote to me. Some of them now get in touch with me every now and then when they think of something else or have found out something new. And with one older lady, I have even developed something like an e-mail friendship.
Even though I can't use everything that has reached me directly in literature, a picture has slowly come together from these various impressions, whereby this picture is relatively heterogeneous. But there are also, I have noticed, some commonalities: For example, I noticed that many Münsterlanders emphasise the low AfD numbers in the region. In addition, people here are obviously very proud of the rich cultural offerings, for which there are plenty of reasons. I don't know of any other region where every little poop town (excuse me) has its own cultural centre with sometimes really interesting projects and offers, and where somehow almost everyone is artistically active in their own way.
Berliners or city dwellers in general tend to have a certain arrogance towards rural areas. Art and culture outside urban centres can only be uninteresting because it is provincial, old-fashioned and conservative. The artistic avant-garde lives in the city. Most city dwellers are probably not even aware that there is more going on in the "countryside" than pottery classes and Window Colour art. But, and this will probably please the project organisers, readers, everyone here now, but I swear, I swear, it's not lickspittle, I've also talked about it with my Berlin friends*: Once you start to open up to what is happening here culturally, this attitude changes very quickly and you ask yourself: who is actually the backwoodsman or backwoodswoman here?
How are you getting on now that you’re back in the region?
I’m fine, apart from the fact that my bum is still really sore because the saddle on the hire bike is incredibly hard and I cycled over 30 kilometres on it the other day, and at least ten every day since then, which I’m absolutely not used to, as I hardly ever cycle in Berlin – partly because I consider bikes a public hazard, both for cyclists and pedestrians – I once had one ride straight into my face. But new places call for new habits – so now I’m cycling, and actually quite happily, if it weren’t for that saddle.
I’m also finding it a bit difficult to focus on a single topic and give it literary form, because more and more impressions, information and possibilities keep piling up. As I said, I recently cycled over 30 kilometres, first through Dülmen Wildlife Park and then on to Senden Castle, before heading from there to Buldern and finally taking the train back to Dülmen. On that ride, I’d actually intended to gather impressions for a very specific piece of writing, but I kept getting distracted by new ideas and images that didn’t fit into that piece at all. Incidentally, that piece is now available to read on the blog.
Where are you heading over the next few weeks of your residency?
On Monday (25 May 2020, editor’s note) I moved to Warendorf. Here I’ll definitely be taking a look at the Ems floodplains and, of course, the old town. On Friday, there’s a trip to the ghost village of Morschenich and into the Hambach Forest with the other fellows from stadt.land.text NRW and staff from the cultural offices. Otherwise, I’ll be cycling around the area a bit and seeing what surprises I come across.
What topics are you currently working on?
At the moment I am particularly interested in the relationship between nature and culture in the so-called park landscape of Münsterland and the care for natural and cultural monuments, or monuments of nature culture as Donna Haraway would say, whom I am currently reading. Such care, as Hermann Grömping, whom I quoted above, also states, takes place always and everywhere, but in the Münsterland especially in the area of tension between proximity/care/progress and distance/protection/conservation. I find this field of tension, yes, exciting! That's why I'm currently working quite extensively on landscape developments of the past and coming decades, for example on how ramparts were built in the past, which were later levelled in the course of land consolidation and have recently been reconstructed.
After you have made contact online, you can now get to know the people of Münsterland live and in colour. Who have you met so far?
Last week I already met with the former head of the department of culture, Hans-Peter Boer, and presented him with my catalogue of questions on the development of the cultural landscape in the Coesfeld area. This week I will probably sit down with Hermann Grömping.
I also met the artist Carsten Lisecki in Berlin, and I'm sure I'll run into him again. I'd like to ask the chordionist Anja Kreysing about her bunker and benefit from her expertise in the field of Spökenkiekerei.
Otherwise, there are many people who interest me. But who I will meet apart from those mentioned depends on various factors, for example, also on chance, opportunities, but also on which text ideas I pursue further and which questions and interests or ideas arise from them.
How do you get from A to B?
By bike and public transport. A few times my friendly landlords have also driven me to the station.
What are you looking forward to most?
The aurochs in the Emsauen.
Can the people of Münsterland support you in any way? Or can they meet you somewhere, see you?
At the moment I have too much material rather than too little. What I still lack, however, is information about Spökenkieker and concrete Spökenkieker stories. I want to know how these stories sound or sounded, what characters and motifs were in them and so on. Because I might want to write one myself. So, if you have a few stories in store or know something about the people with the second face - let me have them!
It's rather difficult to meet at the moment. However, there are already some ideas for possible online and maybe even live-with-distance readings.
