artist, author, facilitator
THE WORK
TRIPPING: Planetary Plays
Different bodies form the planet through various games and plays. These are organized via rules and free play. Economies produce different ways of co-creating planetary plays. Planetary plays are played by planetary people. Desire can be an engine for these plays.
My work has developped as collaborative work with the label apparatus, as solo projects and as artistic research with human and non-human persons, as well as in close encounter with students as part of my teaching practice.
FERMATE: A LANDSCAPE PLAY
Durational Walking Project sind August 2020
Since August 2020 Stefanie Wenner is tripping through Germany by foot as an apprentice of the soil. She is walking alone and meeting different people: toads, forests, stones, windmills, lakes in former coal mines, humans, abandoned gardens, sheep, horses, etc. On these trips, which she began in the tradition of german craftmen going away from home as a stage of becoming of age, using their narratives but changing them by way of appropriating them for her needs, she began to think of what she is doing in walking as planetary theater or planetary performance. She is on the way performing for and with planetary people, with the non human bodies she is encountering as well as with human bodies. Rules for Planetary Performers Guild about to be birthed are emerging, which will in the future invite human people into the journey. As a first step she designed a coat of arms.
Exhibition @ Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
FERMATE: A LANDSCAPE PLAY as contribution to appointments x curated by Julia Schäfer, June – October 2021
Two murals realized in collaboration with Maren Greinke and students of HfBK Dresden, performance in mushroom costume, sound installation in collaboration with Felix Ermarcora.
with Thorsten Eibeler and apparatus
RADIX: PLANETARY RITUALS
Series since 2020
In German, the Latin word RADIX is used for ‚root‘ and also for an astrological chart. In a chart, the dance of the planets and the sun is plotted in a circular image with the earth as it’s centre. In the series RADIX, apparatus draws these energies back down to the stones, which in turn are connected to the planets and colours, which in turn are connected to the planetary constellations of the sky. Entangled and co-performing in our mushroom costumes, we seek to work with these ancient constellations, that are still active and formative for reality on earth.
apparatus tries new narratives, the elastic material behavior of earth, of which we are a part, against the artificial separation of nature and culture. RADIX approaches this field with mushrooms, paints and stones, interprets them, literally, as an image on and with the earth.
RADIX #1 Groß Neuendorf/Oder June 19th 2022
Groß Neuendorf was gifted by Deutscher Orden to a german farmer on 3rd January 1349. Since then, it is no longer a Slavic settlement, but a german village with a predominantly christian, but also jewish history. apparatus took the date of this transfer of custody as an occasion for a ritual of planetary performance: what does the astrological radix drawn in the sky at this moment look like? What are the roots of the transfer of custody of the village and what are the consequences of the colonisation of the Oder delta to this day? In the ritual, we activated this chart and used it as a score for our mushroom choreography.
On 2.7.1753 the so-called Oder breakthrough took place. Since then, the Oder has flowed far away from the towns of Bad Freienwalde and Wriezen, far away from its former railway in a newly constructed bed. The Oderbruch was drained, moorland destroyed in order to be able to operate. Wendish culture in this pine delta was destroyed, a rich fish landscape destroyed. According to legend, the Odernixe moved to the Baasee on this occasion. There apparatus laid out the radix of the Oder piercing and stretched it between trees.
Franz Carl Achard was born on 28.4.1753 in Berlin. As an opponent of slavery, he succeeded in extracting sugar from the turnip. He is also responsible for the detection of humic acid. Humic acids are effective in mud spas, which have been used since ancient times. The earth heals, the fermentation process that takes place in moorland areas has a healing effect on the human organism., Paracelsus already knew that Moors are gigantic carbon reservoirs, they have healing effects on the climate that people need on earth.
VERBARIUM
June 2023 onwards
Verbarium is a collection of words or a game with letters. The project combines both in a threefolded way. As a collection of ways of speaking of and with planetary persons, re-membering those who were objectfied or not mentioned for a longer time. You are invited to share your ways of speaking and listen to a soundwalk that was created on the occasion of Droste Festival here: https://digitale-burg.de/studio/verbarium
At Droste Festival of Centre for Literature in Münster June 2023 Stefanie Wenner collaborated with Planeta Kuz on a Ritual inviting into a dream incubation to trip into conversations with plants and other planetary persons in the beautiful orchard of Annette von Droste zu Hülshoff. More to come soon!
Stefanie Wenner 