For whom do we make art?
2025-05-09

An article by Julla Kroner

When I started doing performance art, my goal was to create Community places. I tried to figure out what community actually is. In the process, I came across the difference between Community (Gemeinschaft) and (digital) community.

According to Byung-Chul Han, the community is a local place of coming together, a ritual of communication. The digital community, however, is the digital space, and thus a decentralized coming together. Communication becomes pure information. "This Community without communication gives way to communication without community." (Byung-Chul Han – Crisis of Narration, Matthes and Seitz Berlin, 2023)

As it is ingrained in my generation, I mainly find myself in communities without communication. But within me is also the search for community. And so, I looked for it in house projects, ethnological studies, schools, children's projects, and families.

But in recent years, I lost focus on creating community spaces – I became lost in theoretical thinking about what could make the whole world a community. On top of that, there’s the current state of politics and the cultural scene. No more large performances were possible, and I became a solo-working artist, sitting quietly in the studio, reading, and producing. Lost in the Community. And the practices of community moved into the private space.

And then, right in the middle of this crisis, I got a call from Malik Meyer.

"Hey, there’s this store in Stolec, a village in Poland near the German border. The store has been closed for years, but I want to use it for a month!"



This was followed by an hour of stories about the people who were supposed to come to the store. Each person was listed individually, with detailed explanations of what they would each do. Until the very last person—me—and the question of whether I would come as well. And of course, I went. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come for the entire duration, so I arrived two weeks before the project ended.

The idea was simple: An anti-capitalist space for art. The village is our host. The artists are the hosts of the store. When people come into the store, they offer them coffee, tea, and snacks. They do not accept money for it. Alcohol is forbidden on the premises, both for the artists and for the guests. We, too, are guests. So we should behave like guests. But we are also artists, and therefore, we should provoke when we feel the need to do so.

Before I arrived in Stolec, I wondered what it would be like to be in a village so small that the mailboxes are in one place. Malik had told me, during a second long call, about all the people who would be participating in the project – but I had no idea what to expect.

And so, the project Market Groseria, literally a grocery store, was born. And the group that was there and visiting – by the time I arrived – had already done a lot. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there were performances, impro nights, exhibitions, workshops, subject evenings, contemporary dance, music, jam sessions, wreath weaving, fire shows, card games, and a lot of communication. The people in the village and from the surrounding area came almost every evening and spent their time there.

On the first evening, I stumbled into a card game night. I witnessed a situation in which Piotr from Stolec started to give something back to the artists. He made a song about Market Groseria using an AI. The song was about how, at this place, everyone comes together. And they are happy.

And that’s when this question popped into my mind. I immediately realized that I had found a different reason within myself to make art. The people in Stolec enjoyed the different forms of art. Some they liked more, some less. Just like there are things I like and things I don’t. But side by side, we are willing to look at and engage with all forms. Everyone is open to see, to hear – but also to speak and to react.

I realized the great love and acceptance in this seemingly abandoned space. The love for the people who were guests. And even in their absence, they are still guests. And I came into this anew. At first, I felt a bit shy, but also very intrigued. And I noticed that in my hosts as well. And so, I began working on a performance. I wanted to reflect the village. But I didn’t want to tell anything they already knew, nor did I want to appropriate their story. I wanted to create something complex, but also something understandable.

 

And there it was –the question -
Who am I even doing all of this for?  

 
I felt in my art. And all of a sudden, I understood it as a gift. Sometimes, when you're caught up in your everyday practice as an artist – paying rent, the studio and apartment, should I make money with my art or not, who even buys this, who even sees it, who actually likes what I do – it’s easy to lose focus. I was always tempted to view art as a communal affair. An open framework for everyone – simple language, but using it to describe complex things. But in that moment, I realized that I had started explaining simple problems with complex language.
That doesn’t have to be wrong, and it’s actually quite common in art, but it was never what I wanted with my art.

 

Market Groseria wanted to be everything at once. Complex, fun, simple, a test. And it worked. Because it always kept its eyes open for people who were simply interested. I remembered that artists have a responsibility. And in these times, we need that responsibility more than ever. We must create communication, create spaces where it is possible to be both community and art. It’s important that all media cooperate and merge, that we listen (!) and speak. And Market Groseria is a very good example of how to bring people together in mutual respect. I think I speak for everyone when I say that I hope such projects spring up everywhere. We all know how exhausting it can be, but, as I said, we must become aware of our responsibility. And then you get something back for what you’ve given – community.

Market Groseria has become a ritual without obligation. The community then consists of the "meaningless" gathering of people. It is casual and refers to the mere coming together. We look together at what we create. We create for each other. Not against each other. And the shared looking, enjoying, and engaging, the mutual growth through the thoughts of others, turns it into a story. And so, Market Groseria has become a shared story that we now need to tell in places without communication.




Picture 1: Kolja Kraft
​Picture 2: Jules Rodgers

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