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Ort Des Trefens

Hannover’s Kulturbuero and the national ‘Gartenregion project’ invited Sacks to engage citizens in a social sculpture process with social and philosophical links to this birthplace of Leibniz and Hannah Arendt. The social sculpture, Ort des Treffens, exploring the relationship between reflection and active citizenship, as well as ‘integration’, took place from April to September 2009, following a 2-year research process. Attracting over €40000 since 2007, with a 14-person team led by Sacks, ODT continues as a ‘citizen’s initiative’, with Sacks as advisor. In the spirit of Arendt, Leibniz and Jaspers, this project and the related book, ‘ATLAS of the Poetic Continent’, highlight a city as constituted by the inner life of citizens, which needs to be valued, voiced and shared.

50 ‘listening stations’ (25 solar-powered, outdoors in parks, squares, streets; 25 indoors in schools, libraries, stations) made audible the reflections of individual citizens. These voices, filling the city, derived from one of ODT’s core processes – the peripatetic ‘Selbsttreffen’ [Encounter with Oneself]. A second group process, ‘Einandertreffen’ [Encounter with the Other], followed regularly in the city hall. Both processes, initiated with the question: “What am I doing in the world?” were facilitated by team members Sacks trained in social sculpture practices. 4 public symposia; a website; public exchanges with NGOs; and ‘ATLAS’, a philosophical workbook [German 2009, English 2013, co-authored with Zumdick], explored and facilitated active citizenship processes. A participant’s vision of ODT’s potential to create a new identity for Hannover, as “city of the golden circle”, ushered in the 2010 citizen-led phase, continuing now with new public funding. Hundreds of citizens participated in processes related to Beuys’s notion of sculpting with ‘invisible materials’, developed by Sacks through three decades of research projects and writings exploring ‘connective aesthetic practices’ that Sacks now describes as ‘inner technologies and the field of freedom’.