Kathrin Böhm

Kathrin Böhm (born 1969) is an artist whose work is defined by its collaborative nature and commitment to the public realm. Böhm is based in London and Höfen in southern Germany.
Training
Böhm first studied Painting and Art Pedagogy at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg from 1990 to 1995 to later do a part-time MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in London between 1996 and 1997.
Early collaborations
Collaborative projects within the university environment include "Galeria Quattro Stazione", "One Night Pub" with Lisa Cheung, "TACOM" with Michaele Müller and Lisa Cheung and co-organised events with Stefan Saffer. Co-curated exhibitions include "The longer the better" (Jelängerjelieber) (1995) at Kunstbunker Nürnberg and "Nice to meet you" (1998) together with Gavin Wade.
Collaborative on-site work within an exhibition context was explored during "Happy Hobby" at Tabot Gallery (1998) and "Pic Nics" at Camden Arts Centre (1999), both with Stefan Saffer.
Public Works
Böhm's long term involvement with the art and architecture collective Public Works started in 1999 through a collaborative public art commission together with Stefan Saffer and Andreas Lang. She is a founding member of the group.
Public Works is a shared space and practice for researching, discussing and implementing art in relation to everyday public space. Public Works was set up as a truly inter-disciplinary practice, in which both professional fields, art and architecture, are allowed to explore the autonomous and the applied through collaboration.
The focus of Public Works is the urban public realm and its participatory development in the context of self-initiatives and formal regeneration programs. Important projects developed during Böhm's thirteen years of practice include Mobile Porch, a roaming mini-architecture for urban neighborhoods, Park Products for the Serpentine Gallery and Kensington Gardens and most recently Colchester Inn, a multi-authored new public space for firstside's adjacent city square.
Böhm is also a founding member of the artist group myvillages.org, together with Wapke Feenstra (NL) and Antje Schiffers (Ger).
Myvillages.org started in 2003 after extensive conversation between the three artists on the predominance of the urban in contemporary art and the role of the rural as a space for and of cultural production.
Myvillages’ activities encompass a broad range of projects, amongst them the ongoing "ourvillages" series, the "Eco Nomadic School", the "Vorratskammer (Pantry)" project and the "International Village Shop".
Key projects
Park products
(public works 2003-2004)
A two-phased project to make connections between different social, cultural and material resources in and around the park, and to extend the concept and realm of cultural production and distribution of the Serpentine Gallery. In phase one different user groups collaboratively developed a series of park related products which reveal less known and invisible aspects of using and running Kensington Gardens. The products were later presented and traded from a mobile stall in the park, using non-monetary currencies for barter and purchase.
Folk float
(public works 2007)
A Creative Egremont initiative curated by Grizedale Arts and Karen Guthrie. A milk float has been adapted to host and tour this new mobile archive which includes a wide range of local memorabilia such as press cuttings, Crab Fair souvenirs, photographs, letters, books and posters.
Folkestonomy
(2007-2009. Together with Andreas Lang from public works. Curator: Andrea Schlieker from the Folkestone Triennial 2008)
Folkestomy is a discursive platform and participatory mapping tool, to look at existing cultural spaces and connections, and to address what culture-led regeneration in Folkestone could mean. The project combines a mobile mapping station, an online data-base with visual representation of the mapping data, and ongoing public discussions. Each element acts on different scales, from the one-to-one, to public local events and the urban scale.
International Village Shop
(2006 - ongoing. Together with the artist group myvillages.org at Grizedale Arts)
The International Village Shop is a cultural initiative and project to support and initiate local production and its trans-local dissemination. The first International Village Shop was run by Myvillages.org in collaboration with public works on the occasion of Grizedale Arts’ "Agrifashionsita TV" programme at the Royal Academy in London. The network of production and trading spaces that are linked to the project have grown since, with temporary and permanent shops in the UK, Russia, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Chile, California, China, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Ghana. New Village Goods are produced in some places, with local interest groups and external guests collaborating on the development and manufacturing of new objects and goods.
Village produce films
(2008. Together with Wapke Feenstra from myvillages.org and Michael Smythe)
The films are short documentaries about the background of products, which are on offer at the International Village Shop. The shop is an ongoing collective initiative by myvillages.org, public works, Grizedale Arts and somewhere, to create temporary and permanent trading platforms for the exchange of local produce across a network of rural and urban spaces. The collection of films shows the multiple places and individuals involved in the overall project. The different scales of the individual village, to private production sites are captured in the films. The films are shown during shop settings, and explain the extended network of producers and production sites that make the International Village Shop. titled "Kathrin Bohm: I am a shop" appeared at The Show Room in London and was developed within the Communal Knowledge programme, which is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation among other charities. To complete the exhibit, Böhm worked with PIP for five months.
Serpentine gallery
(September 2013)
In a 20-minute talk, Böhm discussed her work in the context of myvillages.org to address questions of usefulness and purpose, in the context of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London designed by Sou Fujimoto.

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