WORKSHOPS AT THE MAKOVECZ HOUSE
You are probably also familiar with the phenomenon when your own inner will and intent make your perception sharper – when you hear the same song, the same dog barking from multiple sources; when you see the same colour crop up at different places; when you read the same sentence in different books and then hear it in the talk of others. Is it some current cool? Or is it zeitgeist? Or are we thinking of the same thing all at the same time? Maybe the time has come for something to take shape, or for us to work together on something?
Yes, we feel time has come that we start working with young men and women on questions that emerge inside us the same way as a tree takes shape in the fog as we move closer to it or when a person steps closer to us.
We invite to this joint work all young people who have questions and who look for answers so that they can stand firmer on Earth.
Where?
Makovecz Centre and Archives
1125 Budapest Városkúti út 2.
When?
On four springtime and four autumn weekend occasions in 2019, each encompassing a Friday afternoon and a whole Saturday, plus at a joint bath construction event in the Summer.
15 and 16 February 2019
29 and 30 March 2019
26 and 27 April 2019
17 and 18 May 2019
How?
By making a preliminary commitment to engage; by doing tasks between the occasions on a regular basis; by having a desire to learn…
Who?
Ágnes G. Ekler, Ágnes Herczeg and Anna Makovecz
Application:
Applications are accepted on a first come, first served basis. Please send your application by email to office@makovecz.hu with the following contents:
– Your name, address, occupation, phone number, email address.
– Motivational letter: why am I coming aboard and why am I staying?
Thoughts:
Ágnes Ekler
MI-KOR
As an adult, I feel guilty because of the physical pandemonium, spiritual emptiness and mental deafness of our era. I consider the situation the consequence of multiple failures by several generations. The sinful dormancy of my contemporaries, predecessors and young adults led to general conditions under which losing hope is easy. Seeing the many young people being bereft of hope and tragically errant, my vim springs into motion: when can we tell them, how can we tell them and who will show them that the chaos of the physical world, the many sick and blind souls are merely a reflection of the fact that they (and us) were told lies about life. And that even though almost everyone perceives the chaos, it does not take us far because whatever we were taught is working against our soul and vitality.
Still, my most intense response is protesting against being privy to all this: I cannot be silent about the fact that true thought and concept to save the world and man do exist; that forces that can uplift the soul do exist and that we, people do have the knowledge to get ourselves into invigorating action.
Those who have been quiet above this are probably recollecting their courage to speak out. Or they may be afraid of being mocked at. Or perhaps they do not trust that there are souls out there with open ears and hungry minds for true words.
WHEN should we speak up? It has been overdue for long; WE and the ERA we are living in are past an ugly divorce. Still, there are some young people who still have the fire of questions in their eyes. That fire is still alive. With them I would like to share what I must be quiet about; and I want to hear their questions that may have been left unanswered elsewhere. In case they still want to learn …
Having found partners to all this, my vim evolved into a calling. I can speak and think about society, literature, the growth of man, human education and anthroposophy. Together with the other participants I will be pleased to listen to those whom we fill find along the way, among us.
Szombathely, November 2018
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Ágnes Herczeg
Dialogue – series of group discussion workshops / In dialogue with our young people
Let me start out from my experiences. I have been teaching at universities for long. In the past 25 years, we have raised generations of trainees and young co-workers in our landscape architecture office. For 18 years, I have been organizing creative camps, the voluntary joint work movement, courses, workshops and group discussion workshops. I have worked with thousands of young people and have followed the lives of several generations.
Today’s young generation find themselves in a new situation, with social media and the internet having invaded the private sphere. Some, who have questions and the guts to ask questions, seems to have the perception today that answers are missing. A certain vacuum can be perceived. Some sort of schooling is definitely needed, but not necessarily the kind that these young people have been part of day by day since they were infants.They already developed inner safeguard mechanisms against empty talk. Many years ago, in a message sent to us when we were organizing the Maros-side Community College, Imre Makovecz put it as follows: “the time of talking only” is over.
Therefore, often I have found that we should primarily help our young people formulate their questions about the world and about themselves. We can reach a dialogue if we observe phenomena, hold back our will, and then impact our young people in the atmosphere created this way.
As a landscape architect, I observe the relation between man and landscape, and the change of nature over the seasons. Observing this special relation may teach us to ask our questions.
Budapest, 25 November 2018. Saint Catherine’s Day
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Anna Makovecz
Makovecz Workshop
I perceive in me and in others around me a certain loss of orientation and still, even amidst this sense of being lost, a series of sound questions keep emerging. These sound questions and the desire to find the way out from the sedating numbness of our welfare inspires me to rush to the Workshop, turn on a lamp, light a fire, use the spinning wheel, dust everything off, turn the music on, work the materials with my imaginary hands. Instead of going at it alone, I want to do all this with others who also wish to wake up from this Great Sleeping Beauty state.
We have been working with the Board of the Imre Makovecz Foundation and the Makovecz Centre and Archives (i.e. in the Makovecz House) for a year now on finding a meaningful task or activity that can continue to put the intellectuality of Imre Makovecz into use for the benefit of all. By now it has become clear that we need to work with young people; work together with them on the Future. Those thoughts and statements of Imre Makovecz that are most important to me are very simple: “Sonny, do your own thing!” Another message of his work is that whatever we do, we should do it in a community. The time of working alone is over. The World has been divided into two groups: those who think in material terms those who think in spiritual terms.
Our questions and doubts are similar regardless of our age. At our workshop occasions, we would seek answers to these questions. I would start at the roots: observe the visible world around me. How shall I paint a picture of the world that I am sitting in? What is the shadow of an apple like in lamplight, in the morning sunlight, in January or in August? What is it like in the south and in the north? I observe it, make a drawing of it, then make a painting of it. If we learn to observe nature, we also learn to observe ourselves and the world around us. We can realize connections that we overlooked before. Simple, everyday things that may lead us to a mindset that focuses on the important and thereby help find ourselves and the tasks associated with our calling. Who am I and what is happening around me in the World?
We are inviting to this joint thinking and work all of you who seek answers to questions like this. Those who feel like dusting off the tools and seek new ones in our Intellectual Workshop.
19 November 2018, Budapest
