Sweet Resolution

SWEET RESOLUTION (proposal) —
Cooking up a Network & Edible Installation.

Commissioned by Culturia.de, this proposal was conceived as façade installation for the Josetti Höfe gallery house in Berlin Mitte. Due to unprecedented budget cuts, the project has never been realized. What remains is an idea for collaboration.

Sweet Resolution

Sweet Resolution: Illuminated, nightly installation with 10'000 jars of jelly that takes advantage of The Façade's many windows.

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SWEET RESOLUTION (Süsse Auflösung) proposes a participatory, networked public art project that involves the entire city district surrounding Josetti Höfe (as opposed to a completed, ready-made façade installation that relegates neighbors and passerbyers to a mere audience. Within the concept of SWEET RESOLUTION neighbors and citizens of Berlin are invited to cook fruit jelly — best made with fruits found in the city — and store it in recycled glass jars.

The activities are meant to engage a big range of people from various walks of life towards the same goal: turning The Façade into a gigantic, radiating color mosaic and connect people around preparing and sharing food. Through a thoughtful collaborative effort which utilizes already pre-existing resources (neighbor groups, apartment compounds, surplus fruit, people's jelly know-how, and recycled glass jars) SWEET RESOLUTION is able to produce 10'000 of jelly-filled jars with a low environmental footprint, sort them by colors, and hang them (with sausage nets) behind the windows of The Façade.

Almost half Josetti Höfe's surface is made up of windows SWEET RESOLUTION transforms The Façade it into a huge, sweet lantern at night with the warmer, reddish colors in its center and the colder colors on its margins. The project concludes after the seven-week exhibition period with a Grand Jelly Party where all that generous and condensed fruit energy dissolves into people's bodies over bread, butter and pancakes.

The title SWEET RESOLUTION reminds us that big things are made through small increments (the jar as pixel of The Façade) and that the transcient cycle of creation and dissolution.

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The Collaborative Process.

Sweet Resolution

INVITATION FOR
A) supermarkets to donate unsold, surplus fruits,
B) Berliners to locate city trees that bear fruits,
C) neighbors of Josetti Höfe neighbors to collect glass jars and join jelly making workshops.
[ week 1 ]

Sweet Resolution

VIRAL JELLY COOKING WORKSHOPS
in improvised courtyard kitchens around Berlin where participants pledge to make jelly with donated fruits and invite neighbors and friends to contribute as well.
[ week 2 to 4 ]

Sweet Resolution

JELLY COOKING SUPPORT (JCS)
through personal follow-up visits and calls.
Ongoing trouble shooting provided via phone hotline and email. Participants receive reminders for drop-off and installation of jelly.
[ week 5 ]

Sweet Resolution

COLLECTIVE INSTALLATION
where jelly jars are received at Josetti Höfe, labelled with maker's name, sorted out by color, and hang with sausage nets suspended on metal frames inside of the windows.
[ week 6 ]

Sweet Resolution

SEVEN-WEEK INSTALLATION
with 10'000 suspended jelly jars which illuminate the inside during daylight and the outside during night time with a translucent and sweet mosaic of colors.
[ week 7 to 14 ]

Sweet Resolution

GRAND JELLY PARTY
with bread, butter, crpe and pancakes to taste and resolve the sweet goodness among all participants. Surplus jelly is donated to people in need. Empty jars go into glass recycling.
[ week 15 ]

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The Technology.

Technically the installation of SWEET RESOLUTION is based on re-functioning sausage nets (Rolladen-Netze) — a hose-shaped string net woven from polyester and lattice — which securly assemble up to ten 50cl glass jars into columns which can be hang from curtain rails or mobile streel frames (wardrobe racks).

Sweet Resolution

Sweet Resolution: The Façade installation by day.

The collective art project attempts to utilize already existing resources like salvaged, (surplus or unsold) fruits donated by retailers and wholesellers sugar, pectin, (provided by participants and sponsor), 10'000 marmelade jars (recycled and provided by neighbors). The only material investments needed are 12'000 meters of Sausage Net (240 rolls), and curtain rails for lining of windows.

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Chronology of The Façade Project


In October 2009 curator Perla Montelongo from the Culturia Residence Program invited artists and designers who work with urban space and site specific interventions, to submit a project for Josetti Höfe's Façade. This highly visible, historical structure (former tobacco factory converted into gallery house) is located very centrally in Berlin-Mitte. The submissions of this international competition were evaluated following these criteria:

  • Any media/materials are permitted for installation,
    except those that damage the façade's surface.
  • The intervention must be visible from the nearby train station across the river.
  • The artwork will remain visible for a period of 7 weeks.
  • Formal and conceptual strength as well as
    the viability of the project.

Two winning submissions (among them Sweet Resolutions, above) were selected in November 2009. When it came to the realization, the The Façade Project's funders gradually backed out of their commitment until the organizers decided to cancel the project altogether in March 2010. The idea of Sweet Resolutions remains intact and is here made available to the public.