CHEN Chengwen & Tobias Klich presented the programme ‘Recognising the Other’
The Altmarkkreis Salzwedel Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House was once again the venue for the 30th Altmark Music Festival this year. More than 30 listeners were given a glimpse into the creative work of the current guest scholarship holder CHEN Chengwen. The Taiwanese composer presented his work ‘Erkennen des Anderen’ (Recognising the Other), played by Tobias Klich on the guitar. The guitarist Tobias Klich’s programme also included other new works for solo guitar, which were created in close collaboration with the composers Younghi Pagh-Paan (Korea), Seungwon Yang (Korea) and Farzia Fallah (Iran). Confronting the guitar with Asian sound concepts means gaining fresh new perspectives – recognising the ‘self’ through the ‘other’.
Chen Chengwen works as a freelance composer in the vocal-instrumental and electroacoustic fields. Born in Taiwan, he has been living and working in Germany since 2010. His compositions often create new listening situations by making the seemingly familiar sound unfamiliar, staging the physicality of the musicians in unusual ways, or exploring new concert forms. The focus is on acoustic thinking inspired by electroacoustic listening experiences, e.g. spectral speech analysis, spatial perspectives or the development of hybrid instrument sound bodies. Musical exploration of transcultural experiences and fluidity plays an important role. Further information about the artist: https://chenchengwen.com/
Tobias Klich is a composer, guitarist, music filmmaker and visual artist. His transdisciplinary works often explore the polyphonic connection between hearing and seeing against the backdrop of philosophical and social issues. As a guitarist, he is particularly dedicated to initiating new guitar works. More information about the artist: https://tobiasklich.com/
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The Altmark Music Festival is sponsored by the district of Stendal and the Altmark district of Salzwedel. It is funded by the state of Saxony-Anhalt and receives conceptual and financial support from the Kreissparkasse Stendal and Sparkasse Altmark West savings banks. The complete programme for the Altmark Music Festival 2025 can be found online at www.musikfest-altmark.de/ and in the programme flyer. You are also welcome to attend other events at the 30th Altmark Music Festival. It will take place throughout the Altmark region from 9 August to 5 November 2025. @_AMK
@_Verein: CHEN Chengwen (right) and Tobias Klich (guitar) presented their programme at the Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House.
02.07.2025
Exhibition Scholarship HoldersART
Works by Mariel Poppe and Florian Glaubitz at the Johann Friedrich Danneil Museum in Salzwedel
Traditionally, the Danneil Museum provides a platform for visual artists who spent the previous year in Salzwedel as scholarship holders to showcase their work. In 2024, these artists were Mariel Poppe from Berlin and Florian Glaubitz from Münster.
Mariel Poppe
During her three-month working scholarship, Mariel Poppe has devoted herself to the theme of towers as architectural exclamation marks. Using old found bricks and miniature bricks, she builds possible and impossible tower structures that are stripped of the power of monuments: towers that are crooked and lopsided, perfectly imperfect, manneristically playful and bizarrely surreal.
Towers are perceived in particular as markers in cities and in the landscape. From above, they offer an overview; from below, they provide orientation. Inspired by the numerous, distinctive and unique towers and gate structures of the Altmark region, a series of ‘architectural exclamation marks’ has been created.
Florian Glaubitz
During his stay at the Salzwedel Artists’ and Scholarship House, Florian Glaubitz explored the urban space and the lives of the local people through photography. Caught between everyday impressions and cultural change, Glaubitz questions the dynamics of public and private life.
‘I don’t want to create just a series of individual images, but rather a cluster of impressions that show what “togetherness” can mean,’ explains the artist. His works invite viewers to see the city from a different perspective and to become more aware of everyday processes.
Many interested visitors accepted the invitation to the exhibition opening on 5 June at the Johann Friedrich Danneil Museum.
The exhibition will be on display at the Danneil Museum in Salzwedel until 31 August 2025.
23.04.2025
Scholarship project ‘Inner Landscape’: Between wax, paper and cyanotypes
Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, 17 April 2025: People and their relationships with each other and with the world are the focus of the work of freelance sculptor and graphic artist Adelheid Fuss, who has been living and working in the Altmarkkreis Salzwedel artists’ and scholarship holders’ residence since the beginning of April. ‘My graphic and sculptural works often relate to each other, playing with movement and space,’ explained Adelheid Fuss at a press conference on 15 April 2025 in the studio of the artists’ and scholarship holders’ residence, where she has already settled in. Small drawings are scattered across the walls, and the tables are covered with everything an artist could desire, from drawing materials and tools to wax remnants, while an unfinished sculpture sits enthroned in the middle of the room. “I work rather intuitively. I usually start with a vague idea, which then develops further as I work,‘ says the artist. During her three-month stay at the Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House in Salzwedel, Adelheid Fuss would like to work on a project entitled ’Inner Landscape”. Drawings, casts and impressions gained in Salzwedel will be used to create graphics and sculptures.
The first part of your work at the Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House focuses on sculptural portraits. These are fictional characters who, like the characters in a novel, are inspired by her own experiences and encounters in the city. Adelheid Fuss is particularly fascinated by wax and paper: ‘In the coming weeks, I will combine these two materials and try to form heads out of paper, which can be found in every home in the form of flat sheets.’
In the second part of her work, Adelheid Fuss plans a series of cyanotypes and ink drawings. These will address the theme of ‘memory,’ or rather what humans store as memories. In this context, Adelheid Fuss is particularly interested in the effects that experiences and influences have on social behaviour among people.
Adelheid Fuss has plenty of time and, above all, peace and quiet to work in the studio of the artists’ and scholarship holders’ house. That is precisely why she deliberately chose the scholarship in the Hanseatic city. ‘Salzwedel is not completely unknown to me. Even before my current stay, I was able to get to know the city at its best during a trip,’ says the artist, adding that several fellow students at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle recommended a scholarship stay at the artists’ and scholarship holders’ residence because of its tranquillity and natural surroundings. But for now, she is looking forward to the Easter holidays, which she will of course celebrate with a piece of Baumkuchen.
More about Adelheid Fuss
Born in Sibiu, Romania, in 1977, Adelheid Fuss began studying Romance languages and Slavic studies in Tübingen in 1997. From 1999 to 2002, she trained as a wood sculptor in Flensburg. From 2002 to 2009, Adelheid Fuss studied sculpture at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale) under Prof. Bernd Göbel.
Since receiving her diploma in 2009, she has been working as a freelance sculptor and graphic artist. In addition to her artistic work, she has been involved in art education for over ten years, mainly as a lecturer at the Potsdam Art School. You can find out more about Adelheid Fuss and her work here: http://www.adelheid-fuss.de
@_AMK
09.01.2025
Salzwedel miscellany
On 8 December, former scholarship holders Christian Kreis and Christine Hobar presented the ‘Salzwedeler Sammelsurium’ at their reading entitled ‘Rot- oder Glühwein’ (Red Wine or Mulled Wine). It brings together texts written by Christian Kreis during his time at the Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House 2023. The observations in Saxony-Anhalt’s Venice range from the ultimate Baumkuchen tasting and the most beautiful pile of bulky waste to an outdoor swimming pool test, bell ringing and the zoo.
Christine Hoba was also a scholarship holder in Salzwedel in 2020. In addition to novels, she writes poems and short stories. It is very fitting that Christine Hoba and Christian Kreis happen to be a couple. Learn more about the two of them from their often ironic, melancholic and cheerful texts.
The Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House Association has published the booklet featuring the two artists. Thanks to funding from Sparkasse Altmark and private donors, the booklet was able to be printed. Many copies were already under the Christmas tree. If you would like to purchase a copy, please write to the email address stipendiatenhaus-salzwedel@t-online.de.
21.11.2024
Second Sunday in Advent at the Artists’ and Scholarship Holders’ House 2024
On 8 December 2024 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Kleine Prediger Straße 1 in Salzwedel.
You are cordially invited to enjoy Christmas treats and mulled wine:
At 3 p.m. for a reading from the Salzwedel Sammelsurium with Christian Kreis and Christina Hoba
For studio tours with exhibits
– Historical clothing made of linen and blue print – designed by Christa Maria Meyer
– Felted collages – works by Ananja Kriszun
– Photographs by current scholarship holder Florian Glaubitz
