A New Berlin Balance Sheet - Ulla Hvejsel
Ulla Hvejsel ( Denmark )
During her residency at ZKU, Ulla Hvejsel will continue her research into shitty economies – and work towards presenting a performative walk to some of the sites of the old sewage farms of Berlin.
She is particularly interested in a story about how these sewage farms or “Rieselfelder”, might have produced a social value on rather than an economical value according to an article by Robert C. Brooks, in Political Science Quarterly, in 1905. Brooks took out the big calculator that can calculate more than just the numbers, and figured out that:
"Berlins balance sheet shows conclusively that something more than sewage is required to make sand pactolian. (…) In the final analysis the purely financial results of the Berlin system are of minor importance. Its heaviest dividends are paid in cleaner, healthier, longer lives of two million people."
During the residency Ulla Hvejsel will also try her luck at balancing contemporary budgets with that big calculator.
