tennisballs continued (again)

alsenplatz/alsenstrasse, hamburg 2011



(the third photo shows my friend julia's intervention. she knitted this bit and inside these bowls are seeds covered in clay that will grow out into a climbing plant)


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Just before christmas 2010 i was walking through the shopping district in hamburg's mönckebergstrasse near central station and i asked people what money could not buy.
indeed, not the most innovative question to ask, everyone has already a "right" answer to this. it is like a code that everybody seems to have adapted in our society. we all seem to know that money can't buy love or health. we adapt this cultural knowledge in the course of our lives, one might even call it a truth.
but having witnessed and participated in the annual christmas shopping marathon i wondered if this truth is actually a repressed one. all these old ideas about christmas and love and tranquillity and so forth it is an absurd spectacle to watch. i buy you love and i rush to find the right thing for you. and after i have found it, i need to relax from all that stressful time that i went through to get it.
a lot of people also tell me that they dislike christmas because of this very commercialisation. think about coca-cola's santa claus and how much it shaped our modern image of this bearded man. i assume a lot of parents still try to evoke this fantasy in their kids until they grow up a little and realise it was not him who got them a present from heaven(free of charge). nope, it was provided by that massive shopping centre, just around the corner. Heaven on earth! then the kids see all these wonderful toys that they could play with. But all the parents have to say: "why don't you put it on your wishlist for christmas?! i bet santa claus would be able to get it for you." the kids arent stupid anymore. they know already that there is no santa claus at all. so they play their parent's game. as well-behaved kids they start writing a wishlist in their best hand-writing. they put it in an envelope addressed to the imaginary person and hand it over to their parents who then disappear with the words. "i'll be back soon. i just need to send it to santa claus." two days before christmas eve the parents rush through hamburg to get the presents. with the list in their hands i meet them interrupting their shopping rush.
"can i ask you a question and could you write your answer onto this tennisball here?" i hand over a ball and a pen. "what's the question then?" aks the irritated parent. "what can money not buy?" "love!" the parent replies almost less then a second after. "oh, you dont have to tell me, just write it onto the ball, please." while the parent is scribbling down the word in big letters i get a glimpse of the paper she holds in the same hand as the ball. i see a list of words written in kid's writing. only one i am able to catch: star wars. the parent returns the ball and pen. "it is quite tough to write on that ball. the surface is all hairy and my hand-writing there looks a bit like my kid's one." "that's alright, i can clearly recognise the word." "and what are you gonna do with it now?" she asks me. "i will approach more people and ask them the same question. and when i have enough answers i will stick them together with paper-clips so it might look like a bramble. then i will hang them on an old lamp post. so high, that no one can reach or read it. sooner or later some of them will get loose and fall down like a mature apple. the person that will pass by or find it will read a word on the ball that might be just yours."