“C’mon C’mmons – Tischlein deck dich!” is part-farm, part-outdoor kitchen and part-public dining place. A continuous table provides a platform for growing vegetables and herbs, cooking and eating, celebrating and play; a place for sharing seeds and plants, food and recipes, knowledge, experiences and ideas. It acts as a meeting point for inhabitants, students and visitors alike. Here everybody is both host and guest, for the installation is the result of a true collective endeavour. Weaving a wide network of commoners, the project was realized entirely based on gifts: in a “Kraut-funding” effort all plants were given by citizens of Dessau, construction material were either recycled or donated by companies, local institutions and the municipality contributed by making available infrastructure and facilities. The garden as Commons gains a social dimension: It is not only to be enjoyed or consumed, but invites citizens to actively engage, appropriate their environment, take on responsibility and contribute in constituting an alternate public sphere.
Much rather than the actual table/garden object, the essential product of the project is the processes it triggers; social processes and interactions resulting from making things—building, gardening and cooking together. If at all, only these social processes can ensure the sustainability of the project. The “design” simply underscores its manifold cyclical nature: cycles of growing, harvesting and preparing organic food as continuous material and energy flows; cycles of gardening, cooking and eating as both perpetual ordinary routines and sophisticated rituals; cycles of giving as inherently reciprocal.
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