What on earth is a Schloßökonomie?

It’s funny how you can have experiences in your life that are extraordinary but not realise at the time how much so.

After finishing my commission that I wrote about in December’s Heacham Newsletter, I decided to find a space more suitable for creating large scale sculpture. It was a move from Upper to Lower Bavaria. I moved outside of Munich and entered the region where my mother was born. Emotionally, it was like connecting the dots. In Canada, I grew up far away from my relatives but now they were within reach. I could visit them and find out more about where I came from.

Shortly after joining a regional professional artist’s group I was selected to take part in an art symposium ‘genius loci’ (the genius of the place) which was to start at the end of June 2005. The 12 participating artists met at the site in March. On our tour we visited the mill, granary, horse stable, bull stable (?), brewery and other buildings belonging to a castle. So, this Schloßökonimie can best be described as a castle market (?) and is located at Gern, Eggenfelden. It was built up by the noble family ‘Closen’ in the 14th century. Prominent merchants brought exotic wares to this Gern market making it an ultra-regionally significant and vibrant centre for crafts, trade and culture.

I don’t know how the market fell into disrepair. I do know that the brewery closed in the 1970s and the city of Eggenfelden purchased the Schloßökonomie in the 1990s. By 2005 one building had been transformed into a music school and concert venue. The granary became a gallery space and the horse stable a meeting place. We were free to work in the disused spaces — including the bull stable.

At this inspiring location we would create as well as exchange ideas and philosophise for 11 days. 

It was the brewery that appealed to me. I chose 2 connected rooms. The first with rust, peeling paint, masses of black electrical boxes and a concrete block that had no obvious purpose. The second room had no floor. (Luckily my neighbour at the time made parquet flooring so I was able to get wood slats to create a safe working environment.) One wall was open and could be viewed through a hallway below making it appear like a stage backlit through a massive window.

When we arrived in the summer we were blessed with glorious weather. We stayed at a guest house close by. All of us had ideas of what we wanted to make. It was exciting to see everyone again. We worked, talked, ate and drank art — an immersive experience. The atmosphere was incredible. We connected. Friends were made.

I made an abstracted sculpture for each room with wire, chicken wire and one scanty layer of Papier Maché painted with rust present in the rooms. I wanted the pieces to have the quality of always having been there. The first resembled a figure draped over the concrete block with a rope connecting it to the ceiling. The second – more abstract, in the stage room, was strung up with several ropes — suspended — now no floor beneath it. I named the installation Sacrifice.