Urbane Künste Ruhr is planning a tour around the Ruhr region from October 2024 to October 2027.
The Ruhr region is the former industrial heart of Germany and today an area in transition with a unique mix of more than five million people and 53 cities. The polycentric network of cities makes the region to one of the continent’s major metropolitan areas. Urbane Künste Ruhr aims to visit all 53 cities in three years, and the tour should usually take place once or twice a month at changing locations in the Ruhr region. There will be visits in small towns, which will take an afternoon, but also longer stays for several days and weeks. Each visit will be prepared with local people and initiatives on site.
Urbane Künste Ruhr wants to find out and is launching the Grand Snail Tour in autumn, an artistic-performative journey through all 53 cities in the Ruhr area.
Equipped with a wagon as an action and exhibition space, the Grand Snail Tour aims to present an artistic programme in public places, come into contact with local people and exchange ideas with local players. The programme will be developed in collaboration with various local initiatives, and will feature the works of Marinella Senatore, among others.
The route – from the west to the north, east, south and finally to Herne in the centre of the Ruhr region – follows the spiral pattern of a snail’s shell. The big kick-off event will take place on Thursday 26 September 2024 in Xanten.
The Grand Snail Tour raises important contemporary questions and seeks answers in an experimental and innovative way: Who owns public space? Who are streets and squares there for? Who is excluded and how can we change this? How can art come to the people instead of the other way round? How can art institutions reach an audience beyond the major urban centres and include rural areas in their sphere of influence? How can cultural production lead to sustainable results?
The long-term nature of the project, in which many regional and international artists are involved at all stages, reflects the approach to these questions in numerous facets: in the changing regional landscapes and in the course of the seasons as well as in relation to the current political debates.