Official website: vondu.simonsticker.com

VON DÜ, a danish reggae/dancehall band, had just recorded their first album, when we decided to join forces over the next months to tell their story, from the release of the album on April 29th 2010 through concerts, tour, recordings, rehearsals, visuals and the on and off struggles of a young and upcoming band in todays music enviroment. The project is not only focusing on the music, but also on the stories behind it. What are the members doing in their ‘normal’ life? What is needed to get a record out and what are the aspects that normally no one sees who is going to a concert or listens to the record? There are many questions to answer, many stories to tell and this project is about looking behind the fassade to find the boring and unpleasant, the true and heartful stories. For the rest of the year Flow Media will follow the band, documenting their life and their journey with the record. The project will be released as aseries of short films over the year to give you the chance to follow the development of the band over the time in realtime.

Also visit the project website withourowneyes.org

Wamba is a small towm in the north of Kenya with a hospital that has to care for people even 500 km north of Wamba, people from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. The hospital is the reason why there is a little bit more than nothing in Wamba. Not only sand, dust and stones. The people here have a hard life to live. The rain season did not came for a longer time and the prospects are not high. Especially for the young children it’s a tough life with no real chance for education in the region. And it’s a very poor region of Kenya, what means that most of the parents have no chance to afford their kids a good education what means a better life. Education is also here the key to get out of poverty. Combine that drastic prospects with the epidemic HIV/Aids (more about it here), what kills many before their kids get even in the age to care for themselves, and you look deep into a powerful crisis.

In February 2009 we came to Wamba on a field trip and met Theresa, Alice and William. They had lost parts of their families or both of their parents to Aids and were facing a life without future. Theresa for instance was living at her uncle and he wanted to push her into a forced marriage, a absolute horror as you might understand. And this was not even badly thought by her uncle. He just could not give her a chance for education or not even care for her because of poverty.

We started the Wamba Education Project in these days to give this three young now-students the chance for a better life. It’s a start and some might say: There are more fates like that, it’s a drop on a hot stone. But where to start? You could not change to whole world. But you could do something. And doing something is always better than nothing. And especially when you know exactly where your support is going to and you could follow how it helps. So visit the website for more information and feel free to donate, to give these children the chance for a better life.

One of the main projects of the initiative StadtBauKultur NRW for the next years will be a project called ‘Sehen lernen’, what could be translated as ‘Learning to see’. The campaign faces the main theme: to bring a new sense for the build enviroment in the cityscapes of North-Rhein Westfalen to the public. The project is segmented into three parts, a poster campaign, a internet platform with information material, pictures and so on and, as the heart of it, a architectural wodden building, looking like a old bellowcamera. This so called ‘Sehstation’ should bring a new sense for the surrounding by changing the view in two ways. The first one is experienced while walking up the stairs to the small window at the end, the second view is the open, but still focused one when you walk out again.

I followed the project in 2009 as in the years before, this time with a big focus on doing research how a project like this can change the view of the people to their daily life environment.

Check out the official homepage for more.

Visit the official blog here

A brief history of the BRI

The BRI is still the only format that gives the crucial element of any comp back into the hands of the climbers. In 2007 we invited eight of the strongest, but very different German climbers to put up their own problems and climb them afterwards. Last year we had a tremendous event with the eight invited women from all over the world. Now, this year we feel that we matured enough to invite both men and women! As the last two years we would like to have very different climbers here, not only your usual competition suspects.

Keep it simple? Stupid!

We are trying to make the format as simple to understand as possible and still allow the girls and boys to compete on an equal basis.

• Each competitor will be given a part of the artificial structure to put up his or her problem with an identical set of holds. We allow 60 minutes for that. The girls will get 10 more minutes to put 2 more golden “joker holds” into the male problem of their respective area where they see fit to compensate for lack of reach for example.
• During the actual 90 minutes comp, everybody climbs as many problems as possible, the own problem being of course of most importance. Every problem is worth € 250. This money will be split like this:
• one point for a boy doing a girl problem 2 points for a girl doing a girl problem,
• 2 points for a boy doing a boy problem
• 2 points for a girl doing a boy problem with the 2 joker holds
• 4 points for a girl doing a boy problem without the 2 joker holds! Finally, a special prize for the girl that put up a problem no boy can climb! (Unlikely you say? – well, Angelica Lind’s problem #1 last year never saw a second ascent!)

That’s it for now, please let us know if you have any questions or suggestions and stay posted for more news who is going to compete…