In the volunteer editorial team, Volunteers for Chemnitz 2025 publish reports on their experiences, assignments and adventures around the European Capital of Culture.
Kerstin is 60 years old and works as an office communications clerk. Born in Burgstadt, she is a volunteer at various Chemnitz 2025 events, including the countdown to the European Capital of Culture year together with Lord Mayor Sven Schulze and other guests.
Today I'm not reporting on one of my volunteer assignments, but I was at a private vernissage of the #3000 Garages project in the Garage Campus. I was able to see under: "Bird's eye view - a work of art made of felt" and I went there very curiously. When I entered the exhibition space, many guests were already present and had gathered around a huge table. Suddenly I saw what people found so interesting, a large, colourful carpet! On closer inspection, I realised that it was a picture of Chemnitz made from felted fabric. There were lots of lovingly felted landmarks, houses, vehicles, people, water, plants, animals - everything you associate with a city. On closer inspection, I discovered so many small details that the artists, volunteers and other volunteers had spent hundreds of hours creating that I kept looking and marvelling ... and there was something else, and it belonged to Chemnitz, and that street there ... simply magnificent.
Then the exhibition was opened and one of the many contributors to the project, the volunteer Petra Leonhardt, gave this speech, which I think says everything about this wonderful work of art:
"Hello, I'm Petra and I've been a volunteer since March 2024.
What a wonderful project! Over a year ago - in September 2024 - the Capital of Culture volunteer programme was looking for people interested in the "Bird's Eye View" project. It said that anyone who enjoyed knitting, crocheting or embroidering - in other words, working with wool - and could imagine working on the project over a longer period of time was welcome to come to the Wollgarage on Bornaer Straße for an introductory meeting. Due to the bad weather, the first meeting did not take place in the Wollgarage, but in Sabine's workshop rooms, also known as the Wollbiene. The idea was to create a wool carpet with favourite Chemnitz motifs. The idea was to create a city map as a hidden object. The working method was dry felting. I had never done it before, but it soon turned out to be easy to learn and wonderfully meditative. The results were very beautiful - as you will see here. It's great that so many people took part - people of almost all ages. The resulting variety of motifs is simply marvellous. I discovered new motifs of Chemnitz myself. For example, I had never heard of a donkey bridge in Chemnitz - but it exists. And it wasn't just Chemnitz residents who came. Some people from other parts of Germany also came to Chemnitz specifically because of this project - which was presented in the ZDF magazine programme "Aspekte" (even Swiss television reported on it). It was a great experience. So thank you dear Sabine for converting your garage into a wool garage, for your idea of the wool carpet and your commitment over this long period of time and in so many different places and thank you dear Kati Hyypiä for your artistic support, advice and personal commitment here in Chemnitz. Dear Heike Schlegel-Hielscher, nice to have met you. It was great fun. "
