Antje Stahl & Felix-Emeric Tota

"Plant to go – a quasi bourgeois homage to Joseph Beuys“, 2021

Joseph Beuys started planting 7000 trees in the greater district of Kassel back in 1982 when documenta 7 took place and the Green part that he himself co-founded had just drawn the attention of a few voters in Germany. He called his project „Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung“ which is not only a funny way to criticize the bureaucratic political system but also quite visionary for our current idea of what a great sustainable city should look like. Less cars and traffic, and more plants and parks, for sure. Some even request a new form of co-habitation between animals and people and imagine kids playing peacefully with foxes, for example, or wild pigs joining us for a barbecue in what once used to be a parking lot. Since Joseph Beuys’ birthday is coming up (by Mid May he would have turned 100 years old), writers couple Antje Stahl & Felix-Emeric Tota designed a quasi bourgeois homage to his legacy. „Plant to go“ consists of a „Bauchladen“, a belly-shop or vendor’s tray, hanging down from their balcony (made by S.T.I.F.F. design http://stiff.design with recycled wood) that offers a wide range of seeds of flowers, vegetables, herbs and trees ready to be picked up, taken along, to be planted and grow.

Antje Stahl studied art history, philosophy, and literature in Berlin, Paris, and New York, and is currently working as a writer and editor for the Swiss magazine Republik, as well as a lecturer at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture at ETH Zürich. For her art and architecture criticism she has been awarded with the Michael Althen Prize and the ADKV – Art Cologne Prize. Since her and Felix-Emeric Tota’s son was born in April 2020 she also has been granted with eternal love.

Felix-Emeric Tota works as an editor for the German public radio station Deutschlandfunk and as a writer for newspapers such as F.A.Z. He studied creative writing in Hildesheim. His debut novel – partly set in Romania, where he was born, and traveling to the hinterland of West Germany, where he grew up – is in the making. His son Cosmin is certainly making sure to keep Tota from the desk.