back to school

Today Anita and I along with Stephanie and Mr. Beckmann, visited the Gustav-Heinemann Schulzentrum. It was really cool - murals painted on the walls and students artwork hanging everywhere. The head of the school met with us and gave us a tour. He talked about the new school building, equipped art rooms, and even solar panels on the roof for energy. The students school day used to end at 2:00 for more family time, but the school is now changing for a longer school day. Students have some really creative videos planned. We had our picture taken for two newspapers. We visited the new Folkwang Museum in Essen, went to a special meeting of friends of the museum and then a delicious dinner. I'm exhausted! What a great day!

Museum Education Director and Greensburg-Salem Administrator Travel to Germany For Building a Transatlantic Bridge Project

Katie Barnard, Director of Education and Visitor Services, and Anita Rometo, Community Liaison for the Greensburg-Salem School District will arrive in Oberhausen, Germany on March 21 to meet with Stephanie Buchholz, Project Coordinator at the LVR-Industriemuseum, in conjunction with Building a Transatlantic Bridge, a partnership between the Westmoreland Museum of American Art and the LVR-Industriemuseum. During their visit, they will tour the various former industrial sites that have been transformed into cultural destinations, as well as visit with teachers and students of the three participating Oberhausen high schools.

Read press release.

Museum and more

On Monday we went to our museum. Katie and Anita saw our permanent exhibition and talked to the museum staff. After that we went to the big shopping mall "Centro" and ate at a Brauhaus.
Burkhard showed us the Peter-Behrens-Building, our exhibition hall for "Feuerländer - Regions of Vulcan". We also saw the collection of the LVR-Industriemuseum.
In the evening we got a guided tour through the Galerie Ludwig, a castle in Oberhausen, where art is presentated.
Our day ended with an invitation of our "friends of the museum". We had a great dinner in the restaurant at the castle. The teachers and headmasters as well as some colleagues of the museum joined this event.

Katie and Anita arrived in Germany!

Only a view hours ago Katie and Anita arrived at the airport in Düsseldorf!

Me and Antje picked them up. Together we drove to the harbour in Duisburg (it is located at the river Ruhr) for having lunch.
It was 7 a.m. U.S.-time, so it was really a very early lunch time for them today!.

In the evening me and Burkhard will show them the "Landschaftspark Duisburg" and we will climb with them on a blast furnace. In the dark the whole area is illuminated, so it will be surely very impressing.

The photo shows the view from the blast furnace (it is 70 metres).

We are looking forward to a GREAT time!

Read more:

http://www.landschaftspark.de/en/home/index.php

In the Paris Airport

Hi everybody! We made it over the ocean - Anita and I are waiting for our flight from Paris to Dusseldorf. It is early in the morning here - we slept a bit on the plane. Looking forward to seeing our friends again and having a great time in Oberhausen!!!

I can't wait to go to Germany on Saturday!!!

Anita Rometo, Community Liaison at the GS School district will be travelling with me!

I hear America singing...

Walt Whitman - the classic voice of the American poetry - envisioned in his poem I hear America singing a country of people working for the greater good of mankind - he described workers coming together as part of the whole society developing industry and production.
When Katie, Amy, Stefanie and I looked into the showcase in front of the Rivers of Steel Heritage museum in Homestead a completely different facet of the day-to-day work of the Homestead Steel Workers was revealed there: "Days since last injury" panels were showing the days without a working accident, safety helmits and safety lamps illustrated that working in a steel mill was exposing men to danger.

We got inside the museum - a former hotel, the meeting point of the strikers during the Homestead Strike (a serious labor disput between the Assoziation of Iron and Steel Workers and the Carnegie Steel Company) - expecting to see some instructional films about how to avoid accidents at work. We did see them! But Ron Baraff also took us around the museum explaining about the former Industrial Area in the Mon Valley and about his great vision: the redevelopment of the Steel Industry Historic Site. The cost to implement this vision would require the collaborate support and investment of the private, public and philanthropic sectors, he told us. I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, those of planning teams...

The Mon Valley is a mirror image of the Ruhrvalley (coal mining, steel production) - Duisburg is a city in the Ruhrvalley - the Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park is "a public park which was designed in 1991 with the intention, that it works to heal and understand the industrial past. The park closely associates itself with the past use of the site: a coal and steel production plant" (Wikipedia) . The park is - a model for Rons vision of a revitalized industrial area in the Monongahela Valley.

On my way back home to Oberhausen I had a dream that Ron´s vision had become a reality: Wearing hard hats and goggles, surrounded by the sounds, smells and heat of the mill, a virtual reality attraction guides Katie, Amy, Stephanie, Ron and me through a steel mills interior and working blast furnace, where we are faced with the dangers the steelworkers were faced in the past. After a meal at the mill´s cafeteria and a stroll through the Steel Industry Artifacts Park*, we enjoy the fascinating lightshow at night, are amazed of the prismatic colors of the blast furnace looking like another kind of beacon and listen to that certain sound of memory:
"At night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, singing with open mouths their strong melodious sounds."

* an idea based on the "Carrie Furnace Site Conceptual Plan"