Garden of Moving Times
What can we learn with the cycles of life
on a school meadow?
Garden project and open air learning space in the framework of
Bad Ischl Salzkammergut European Capital of Culture 2024

Location: HLW Bad Ischl, Kaltenbachstraße 19, 4020 Bad Ischl

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From 2022 to 2024, a semester-based, artistic-pedagogical process and open air learning space was being cultivated on the grounds of the HLW Bad Ischl. The artists Daniela Brasil and Sophie Krier were developing the Garden of Moving Times in dialogue with teachers, students and related experts and initiatives. The project was produced by <rotor> Centre for Contemporary Art in the framework of Bad Ischl Salzkammergut European Capital of Culture 2024.

About the project
Küchenwiese (meadow adjacent to the kitchen) is the name given to an outdoor area that is located between one of the school buildings and the Sissi Park, also riverbank to the Kaltenbach and Traun water bodies. Which kinds and ways of learning can a plot of land host? Which (past & future) forms of life can it enable, protect, and give a voice to? Can it become a space for the collective self-realisation of a school community?

Rooted in the concept of care, which plays a central role in the student’s education at the HLW (a secondary school for economy, social management and care), the Garden of Moving Times is about reclaiming our relation to Earth-time understood as time to recenter and replenish ourselves – as opposed to time as measure of production. In the garden, broken relations with vegetal, animal, mineral and ancestral worlds can be repaired, across time and perceptions. What is the time of the school, the time of the body, the time of the garden? Underpinning the design is the intention of taking the time to care, and healing by embracing natural time.

In 2022, the first conversations among the project partners started. From 2023 on, Daniela Brasil and Sophie Krier introduced process-based participatory art, hands-on workshops and seasonal semester exercises, thereby extending their art practice to the school curriculum. Students and teachers were invited to connect to the cycle of life: learning about regenerating soil, and more-than-human companion- and kinship. For instance, visual soil analysis using the vernacular technique of chromatography revealed the presence, and absence, of soil life at the site of the garden-to-be.

A spring workshop took place at the beginning of April 2024, during which the participating students built various elements for the garden. Under the guidance of stonemason Günter Brucker, a horizontal sundial was created using boulders from the Kaltenbach. One group worked with the teacher Sophie Jaros to design insect hotels and another with the artist and garden expert Julian Karacsonyi to create two raised beds and a tool shed. Another group provided all participants with delicious refreshments.

After three years of preparation, the "Garden of Moving Times" was officially opened on June 27th, 2024. After the opening ceremony, there were information stations at certain elements in the garden where you could learn more about the process of the garden element. These included a sundial station, a wild zone station, an exhibition in the garden hut and much more. The opening was rounded off with music from the band GiZiKoGla and Andaka and a buffet from the school restaurant. And there was a lot of dancing :)

The following people were actively involved in the opening ceremony as part of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024:
Ines Schiller (mayor of Bad Ischl), Elisabeth Schweeger (artistic director of the European Capital of Culture Salzkammergut 2024), Wolfgang Schlag (co-initiator of the project), Daniela Brasil + Sophie Krier (artists), Rainer Posch (director), Sophie Jaros, Brigitte Kendlbacher, Barbara Vockenhuber, Lisa Zeitler (teachers), Leona Kirchner, Flora Kolanek (students), Josef Spitzer (retired teacher), Günther Brucker (stonemason), Beatrice Hoheneder (wildflora explorer), Anton Lederer (< rotor >), GiZiKoGla + Andaka (music), and many more students and teachers of the HLW Bad Ischl.
Thanks to all of them!

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More about Garden of Moving Times:

Bad Ischl Salzkammergut Kulturhauptstadt Europas 2024

HLW Bad Ischl

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Credits

The Garden of Moving Times was artistically realized by Daniela Brasil & Sophie Krier and was created in close cooperation with dedicated teachers, students of the HLW Bad Ischl and numerous project partners from the region and beyond. The project was initiated by Birgit Lurz, Anton Lederer, Margarethe Makovec, Rainer Posch, Karl Rossmann, Wolfgang Schlag, and was produced by <rotor> Centre for Contemporary Art in the framework of European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024.

All photos: Pia Fronia

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Workshop in early summer: 28. - 30. June 2023


As part of the early summer workshop, lots of things were tried out
on the Küchenwiese site.


The various groups planned, dug, planted, explored,
collected, documented...


One group worked on a sign for the future garden.

Soil meets concrete.

A pupil tries out the function of the ground sundial with her body.

Farewell to the old lime tree, which had to be felled in the course of
the summer as its core has died.


Together, they thought intensively about the future garden on the kitchen lawn.


Trying out the space requirements for a future open-air classroom.

Vegetable seedlings were planted, the yield of which would later be used in the school
kitchen of the HLW.


To ensure that the plants grow well over the summer, an automatic watering system was installed.


Workshop in late summer / harvest thanksgiving: 13. - 14. September 2023


A lot has grown in the garden during the summer. A lot died too. Part of the workshop involved
taking note of this.


Freshly harvested chard.


The ridge bed after the harvest.


The students prepared seasonal dishes using vegetables from the garden with guidance from
the school kitchen teachers.


There were spreads, salads, drinks and other tasty treats.


Eating the prepared meals together was an opportunity to share time.


In the garden, pieces of the olf lime tree were arranged in the area of the future wild zone.


The artists Sophie Krier and Daniela Brasil discussed the designs for the Garden of Moving Time
with the pupils.


Pictures and plans were viewed together and discussed animatedly.


Daniela Brasil and Sophie Krier.

Spring Workshop : 10. - 11. April 2024

Come-together of students, teachers, artists and workshop
supervisors in the Garden of Moving Times.


Stonemason Günter Brucker tells the students about his sundials and how they work.


Together with stonemason, the HLW students built their own
sundial for their garden in the workshop.


The horizontal sundial is tried out in the Garden of
Moving Times.


The river stones that were fished out of the Kaltenbach on
the morning of the first day of the workshop were worked on
by the students with chisels.


Analemma symbol on the river stones.


Two raised beds were built for the school kitchen so that fresh
herbs from the garden can be used in cooking lessons.


There is a lively exchange between the students about the elements they have built.


The students worked skillfully with tools under the supervision of the workshop instructor
Julian Karacsonyi.


The pupils pose in front of the future garden shed, which will
serve as storage space for other gardening utensils.


Opening: 27. June 2024

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