Learning and collaborating at the River Summer Camp in Stuttgart

For two weeks in July, the banks of the Neckar river in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim hosted the River Summer Camp 2024, a programme of artistic research and exploration organized by the Wüstenrot Foundation, urbanes.land gGmbH Stuttgart, and Belius GmbH Berlin in collaboration with CARADT.

A diverse group of teachers and students from universities across Europe came together in Stuttgart to inspire and learn from each other within the industrial landscape of the Neckar river banks. They started out by turning an empty office building into their temporary campsite; their communal space for the next two weeks of living, working and learning together. Through a practice of cohabitation that was intimate yet respectful of each others’ boundaries, the group explored new forms of collaboration that didn’t shy away from productive conflicts either.

River Summer Camp activities included a range of research and learning experiences that challenged the confines of conventional academic settings. Taking the Neckar River and its immediate surroundings as their point of departure, participants engaged in a diverse set of practices, from philosophical debates to hands-on crafting, all aimed at reinterpreting the spaces around them and their roles within these spaces. CARADT researchers Renée van Oploo and Rob Leijdekkers hosted a series of workshop on ‘Convivial g(h)osts‘. In this workshop, they explored the dual roles of guest and host in the context of environmental and community engagement. Professor Sebastian Olma gave a lecture that set the stage for the collective research in the workshops, emphasizing the dynamic and ever-changing relationship with the river.

During the week, participants developed several projects that responded to site-specific questions that emerged from investigating the direct surroundings. In addition, site-specific interventions were developed:

• A convivial roof: An imaginative effort where ideas and shelter merged to create a space for communal encounters.
• Another face: A creative venture that transformed the everyday appearance of a familiar structure, making it a landmark visible from several points of view in Stuttgart.
• In the staircase: A reflection on movement and thought, turning an ordinary space into a repository of collective memory.
• Toweling: An exploration of texture and comfort that used the physicality of toweling to absorb and reflect the camp’s emotional and intellectual journeys.

In these two weeks of intense research and learning, students and teachers produced a magazine highlighting approaches to communal living and interdisciplinary practices that were developed during the camp. This publication, along with the items created during the camp, will be showcased in an upcoming conference ‘Neckartagung’ in September 2024.

The River Summer Camp provided an exciting platform for collective learning and international co-creation ‘in the wild’. It also set the stage for ongoing discussions about sustainable practices and creative community building. Participants went home with a renewed sense of what it means to be both a creative maker and a caretaker of their social ans natural environments.

Pictures taken by Tabea Schaeffer & Xaver Olpp