Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser
Wysing Arts Centre invited Berlin based artists Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser to create an ‘amphitheatre’ on Wysing’s rural site, working with a team of volunteers and using only discarded, found and recycled materials.
Köbberling and Kaltwasser have a track record in working this way and have completed a number of similar projects in Germany and other European countries. This was their first project in the UK.
Köbberling and Kaltwasser's unique approach to creating buildings for communal use – the materials they use and work with are always unwanted and liberated by the artists to be transformed into something not only beautiful but functional - created a very particular environment of sharing and generosity around Amphis. Over a two month period many people came to Wysing to drop-off their unwanted materials. Many also helped to build the structure and many more returned to take part in a series of dicussions and film screenings around the project.
Amphis crosses the disciplines of art and architecture and much of the thinking behind the project comes from their shared interest in changes within architecture. What Folke and Martin set out to do with Amphis was create a structure that embraced the ideas of many people in one big patchwork ‘house’ filled with practical, structural and sculptural elements. Every element of Amphis was built using materials donated to the project and built by a community of 40 volunteers without whom the project - conceptually as well as practically - would not have been possible. They were:
Danny Boyle
Claire Ward
Robin Turner
CJ Mahony
Bryony Graham
Debbie Lauder
Linda Thomas
Phoebe O'Donnell
Rachel Barker
Gideon Pain
Heath Bunting
Ele Holloway
Elizabeth Murton
Christina Green
Ben Short
Stephen Draycott
Mark Mau
Jane & David Crawford White
Charlotte & Martin Parker Hall
Julian Brown and family
Kim Stephens
Steve & Paul Carpenter
Judy Cowell
Andrew Tanser
William Cruikshank
Charlotte Schneider
Clara Grosse
(apologies if we have forgotten anyone!)
And with many thanks to the following for donation of materials:
All the individuals who took the trouble to drop materials off
Lucas Morley
Donarbon
Hill Partnerships
Redrow Homes, St Neots
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
O'Sullivan Shopfitting Ltd, Cambridge
Labute Group Ltd, Cambridge
SDC Builders Ltd
5th Studio Architects
KA Anderton Haulage, Bourn
And to Stephen Robinson for the loan of his van