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Healing Complex
(2018 — ongoing)

3.6.22 – 29.6.24

Address

Ehemalige St. Bonifatiuskirche 
Cranger Straße 338-342 
45891 Gelsenkirchen

Since 3rd June 2022, Urbane Künste Ruhr had been running the project Healing Complex (2018-ongoing) in Gelsenkirchen, initiated by artist Irena Haiduk, modelled on ancient healing sites that combined art and healing.

In her artistic practice, Haiduk collaborates with art institutions, which in turn can become economic catalysts for the production of paintings, books, texts, films and scenographies, metallurgy, weavings, architecture and garments, thus stimulating the public's imagination. At the heart of the project, baking as a universal and unifying element between people and cultures: a central oven was used to create a place for joint work and exchange for interested audiences and local residents.

Fungi serve humans as food, medicinal or intoxicating agents; they are sedentary like plants, but cannot photosynthesise. Therefore, they have to feed like animals by ingesting organic substances and digesting them through enzymes. In the kingdom of living things, fungi form a category of their own: they are neither plants (Plantae) nor animals (Animalia), but are related to both. As for us humans, communication and cooperation are essential for their organisation: they often live in symbioses formed via the mycelium – the complex, mostly underground network of fungal filaments from which mushrooms can then sprout above ground. The mycelium distributes vital nutrients in the soil and is also called "nature's glue" because it breaks down decaying material and holds it together. At the same time, it creates connections, giving rise to its own economy: they form the social network between the different organisms.

With an economy that is not only metaphorically based on the model of mushroom cultures – myconomy – the Healing Complex will reopen in March 2023. In addition to its own mushroom cultivation, which visitors can cultivate and harvest, the potential of networks will also be explored. Tokens designed by artist Irena Haiduk will serve as currency on site. To expand the myconomy, these tokens will also be available at the other exhibition venues of Ruhr Ding: Schlaf in Mülheim, Witten and Essen. They can be exchanged at the Healing Complex for workshops or participatory activities, the proceeds of which in turn remain with the participants. This circulating economy creates a network of knowledge exchange and cooperation in which experimentation can take place and through which new, reciprocal links are created.

Artist

Open Artsit

©Irena Haiduk

Irena Haiduk

In June 2022, Irena Haiduk opens the exhibition Healing Complex (2018—ongoing) in the former church of St. Bonifatius, which is becoming a new meeting and community place in Gelsenkirchen.

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Bergkamen

Begleitet wird die Grand Snail Tour von Künstler*innen aus dem Bereich Literatur, Fotografie und Zeichnung, die zeitgleich zum Aufenthalt des Tourmobils, Eindrücke und Reflexionen aus jeweils derselben Stadt sammeln und diese sie visuell oder literarisch ins Bild setzen. So entsteht ein Paratext zur 3-jährigen Tour, der in Form einer Reisechronik, ein Kaleidoskop an Geschichten, Verbindungen, Momentaufnahmen in den 53 Städten der Region als Gleichzeitigkeiten und Ungleichzeitigkeiten zur Grand Snail Tour sichtbar werden lässt.

Bergkamen von Jochen Lempert

Bergkamen 7. August 2025

1a Bergarbeitersiedlung hinter zeitgenössischem Sichtschutz
1b Zeitliche Abgrenzung im Wasserpark: vormittags badende Stockenten — nachmittags Menschen mit Hunden

2a Eine kleine Population Stadttauben: Indikator für geringe menschliche Aktivität im öffentlichen Raum. Wenige Menschen bedeuten wenig Nahrung für Stadttauben.
2b Stadttauben waren einst Felsentauben — und schätzen felsige Strukturen als Brutplatz.

3a Feinstrahl —  nordamerikanischer Neophyt, der sich sich in den letzten Jahren stark verbreitet hat.
3b Russischer Bär — eine südliche Art an der Nordgrenze seines Areals — die in großer Zahl auf der Halde Großes Holz fliegt.

4a Wuchsformen des Efeus: ein Profiteur des CO2 Anstiegs
4b Bananenstaude: Zeichen eines Klimawandels

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Open "Bergkamen"
Model of the former residential tower in Bergkamen, part of the artwork “Neustadt” by Julius von Bismarck and Marta Dyachenko.

© Henning Rogge

7.8.25, 17–21 h

Narrating in Bergkamen

Bergkamen

Artist

Open Artsit

© Stiftung Sitterwerk

Jochen Lempert

Jochen Lempert (*1958) studied biology. Between 1979 and 1989, he was a member of the experimental film group Schmelzdahin, which explored the combination of chemical processes and celluloid film.

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