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The Lebensreform [life reform] in the title of this book is a tenuous link to a previous century and a collection of ideals and aspirations that still hold purchase. In a striking split of right wing/ left wing political affiliations, the life reform movements arising in Germany in the mid 1800s were controversial from the beginning, and could be considered as culturally modern or anti-modern, progressive or reactionary. They do not present as a legacy an untroubled programme of togetherness or progress, although it seems that nuggets of integrity and intelligence may remain as part of a recurring utopian wish. Invoking a variety of imaginative and problematic documentary strategies, Lebensreform in Leitrim is a kind of surrealist ethnography which addresses the countercultural legacy of migrants to the Northwest of Ireland, and evokes an emotional geography of desired alternatives. Like other of the artist’s projects, Lebensreform in Leitrim attempts to image and describe improbable, but actually existing narratives, and suggests the necessity of desire for developing new forms of economic and social imagination.
Contributors include Wilhelm Bodewigs, Emer Coleman, Alice Lyons, Dominic Stevens, Jackie McKenna, Ulrich Kockel, Tina Pommer, Stephen Rennicks and Hans Wieland.
An artwork by Sarah Browne
Designed by Peter Maybury
Published by cottagelab 2011
ISBN 978 0 9554976 5 0
Printed by MM Artbook printing & repro
Price €10 plus P&P
Lebensreform in Leitrim is developed through a residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Ireland and supported through Rhyzom, a collaborative research network funded by the European Commission.
