B1|A40 THE BEAUTY OF THE GRAND ROAD
DIE SCHÖNHEIT DER GROSSEN STRASSE 2014 EINE AUSSTELLUNG IM STADTRAUM DER A40 VON DUISBURG BIS DORTMUND 14.06.2014 – 07.09.2014 MAP MARKUS AMBACH PROJEKTE URBANE KÜNSTE RUHR (HG.) WIENAND
DIE SCHÖNHEIT DER GROSSEN STRASSE 2014
EINE AUSSTELLUNG IM STADTRAUM DER A40 VON DUISBURG BIS DORTMUND
14.06.2014 – 07.09.2014
MAP MARKUS AMBACH PROJEKTE
URBANE KÜNSTE RUHR
(HG.)
WIENAND
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ZWISCHENWELTEN Gleich hinter dem Schlachthof<br />
drängt sich eine ambivalente Halbwelt zwischen<br />
Schienenstrang und Autobahn, die nur unter der Fernwärmeleitung<br />
hindurch zu erreichen ist. Wer die nur<br />
einen Meter hohe Passage unterquert, findet Kleingärten<br />
und Ponys, Goldsucher (im Computerschrott)<br />
und ominöse Familienclans im Niemandsland zwischen<br />
den Welten.<br />
WORLDS IN BETWEEN Right behind the slaughterhouse,<br />
only accessible through under the district<br />
heating pipes, begins an ambivalent demimonde. Once<br />
you cross the only one meter high passage, you find<br />
a no-man’s-land, wedged between railway tracks and<br />
the autobahn, inhabited by dubious family clans in allotment<br />
gardens, ponies and even gold prospectors<br />
(digging through the e-waste).<br />
usually led ordered lives sought to live out their<br />
steamy fantasies in the shadows of lunchtime, at<br />
a place that closed at eight p.m. and where Happy<br />
Hour was at five.The Turkish disco Taksim,<br />
which occupied the same building, had other<br />
interests: Close proximity to the autobahn allowed<br />
customers to drive from as far away as<br />
Rotterdam and Berlin, and made a hundredkilometer<br />
drive seem as easy as driving to a local<br />
urban disco. For a long time, stars of various<br />
pop scenes met in the demolition- ripe hall, with<br />
its contrastingly luxurious interior spread out<br />
over thousands of square meters. The neighborhood<br />
bordello was always an eyesore to<br />
the Islamic proprietors and guests. Today, the<br />
Taksim is in downtown Bochum and the building<br />
has been orphaned.<br />
In accordance with his profession, though,<br />
the pastor of the drive-in church is interested<br />
in the guests of both Freude 39 and Taksim.<br />
The church, which had been separated from its<br />
parishioners by the autobahn, has been looking<br />
for and finding a new congregation among<br />
travelers, who anonymously write down their<br />
hopes, dreams and fears in the church’s public<br />
journal. The Epiphanias community hosted<br />
an exhibition by the artist Judith Pappe, who<br />
photographed drive-in churches all over Germany.<br />
Right now, the nearby slaughterhouse is fighting<br />
for its location, since accessibility to the A40 and<br />
its latent anonymity is a continual benefit. In this<br />
place, where every day hundreds of animals begin<br />
their journeys to our plates, invisibility is valued<br />
and contact with the outside world avoided.<br />
And anyway, animal protection activists and<br />
other dissidents regularly make trouble for the<br />
owners. Nevertheless, the people who operate<br />
this family business show up friendly. Since<br />
the slaughterhouse only takes up a small portion<br />
of the property, they need to be innovative,<br />
so various retailers have moved in around them.<br />
When meat goes on sale on Friday evening and<br />
the cost of cutlets falls below one euro, it causes<br />
a traffic jam that reaches all the way to the<br />
autobahn. A dealer in sausage casings, a knife<br />
sharpener, an architectural office, a photographer,<br />
and a railing manufacturer with a museum-like<br />
display are now part of the mixed array<br />
at this traditional locale.<br />
Where the property meets the railway’s facilities,<br />
allotment gardens and other peripheral<br />
operations have settled in. In the no-man’s-land<br />
in between the oversized district heating pipes<br />
and the railway tracks, dubious micro-communities<br />
can be found abutting bourgeois gardens.<br />
The complex of entrances, some of which lead<br />
through a pipe just one meter above the ground,<br />
make this space seem more than unattrac tive.<br />
In addition, towards the back it borders on a<br />
cemetery, which is slowly being turned back<br />
into a park.<br />
MARKUS AMBACH<br />
192