On the Landway to New York

leavinghomefunktion: 5 People + 5 Ural Motorcycles + 2 Years + 30.000 Kilometres

In September 2014 five young artists from Halle, Germany, started a two-years trip from Germany to New York City on the landway. – They are using old Russian Ural motorcycle going East to get to the West. They will cross 23 borders and will cover a distance of 30,000 kilometres. InEnArt met the five artists on their two-days stay in Istanbul.

Road of Fame

The journey is not a way to get a break of daily life; they intend to get new impulses and they want to exchang experiences with other cultures to overcome clichés and get connected to build up a community. It is their way to broaden their own horzions, get first-hand informations and questioning themselves “how do I handle the situation?”. Through these experiences they want to create a social project. The biggest challenge lies in advantage of rearranging one’s own preceptions of cultural and social space constructions.

That is why we decided to do this in two years to get a deeper insight, mentioned Elisabeth Oertel.

Johannes Fütsch, Sven Klatt and Lisa Müller, Elisabeth Oertel and Anne Knödler

They left their familar terrain entering an adventures of the unknown.

We use the motorcycles as a medium to get in contact with our social environment, said Anne Knödler.

They decided not to be a studio artist but expand their art practice into a mobile and intercultural art project.

 

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Two wheels with sidecar

The Ural motorcycle is a cross-country vehicle which is also used and much appreciated in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia. This type of motorcycle with a sidecar is a traditional means of transportation in many places there. It is generally considered robust, anyone can repair it and when necessary they can provide us with spare parts, yet it is said that these machines break down from time to time.

The motorcycle makes the difference

We opted for these old Russian motorcycles since for us the journey itself is the main issue

Follow the Trip

By keeping us up-to-date they are documenting their trip via filming, photographing and writing and publishing it regular at leavinghomefunktion.

The next stop on the trip will be in a small village in Georgia where they are going to stay six-month isolated from the civilization.