Jean-Francois DROZAK

“Whoever wants to hold the world in his hands, should avoid doing handstands.”

 

I call myself a world-citizen which may be understood from my biographical background. I grew up in three countries: Brazil, Belgium and Bavaria, a part of Germany. All three countries begin with the same letter and there are cultural forces which work in me and require variety. I had the honour to visit almost every type of school when I was an adolescent. I attended a private school, a high school, several secondary schools, a technical college and secondary modern school. At boarding school I lived with children of different skin colours, religions, languages and philosophies of life and already as a child I met myself in every kind of new way over and over again. Different cultures challenge me. My longing for variety does not come from a romantic need. In places where there is variety and movement, I feel at home. I cannot help doing so.

 

My wife and I are living in Nuremberg, Germany. As a social worker and Drama educator I run “artificial fertilizer, the agency for cultural design “.
www.kunstduenger-nuernberg.de

 

 
Jean Drozak
Project
Another way of passing the time
December 2008 (Project 01)
Background

By art I express myself. I love art and have orientated my life on it. Art is beautiful, through art I deal with several cultural forms of expression again and again. I am more and more persuaded of the fact that every person can develop their own cultural identity. I had to develop my identity, because I grew up in a cultural gap. Art allows me to express what I cannot observe outside of me - my uniqueness in cultural variety. My internal variety receives a concrete expression by my artistic nature. To discover these forms creates self-confidence and powerful radiation whether it is in professional life or in the bar next door.

My intention as a cultural designer is to see people set free in these areas. If somebody can reach a greater knowledge of himself and find a way to express it in a social attractive way, he will appear self- confident.

I work in a store office, and the office of my agency has a shop-window to the Rothenburgerstrasse, one of the main arterial roads of my city of Nuremberg.

Recently a friend came to pick me up at the end of my working day to get something to drink in a local bar. We could not decide spontaneously where we wanted to go. So I suggested that we could just sit down comfortable within the shop window of my office, drink a glass of wine and look out at the main street. Slightly surprised my friends said “yes” and we settled in the display window – of course without any curtains.
Description

We were sitting there for about 2 hours. Most of the time people were passing by in front of our window.  Many of them were in hurry and so took no notice of us. Some stopped and looked in bafflement asking themselves what two men were doing in a shop window. A few of them even knocked and asked: “What does that mean? “  

 It was the rush hour and the Rothenburgerstrasse was much frequented. We enjoyed passing the time. It looked as if all the cars were longing to go home in order to enjoy the evening as well. We were sitting on office chairs. I took a small occasional table and we put a white tablecloth on it. The Bordeaux was very delicious. I still had the wine from one of our business parties. We were talking about the upcoming vacation and the work day.
Sitting in the window

 

  
Results
 Jean Drozak 2

My friend was very moved by sitting in the shop window. He would normally go outside, visit parks or gardens to enjoy a nice place in the evening, but now he was surprised that he could also sit beside a busy main street. To see beauty in the evening traffic, had been beyond his imagination. We also enjoyed  looking at the blocks of houses.

 For me at first it was just amusing to sit in my own shop window. After a little while I felt an increasing joy about the luxury I have, a modern luxury I would say. I have the freedom to decide where I want to spend my evening, poorly, exclusively, in the nature, outside, in the wood or right here, in a shop window.  Some people who came in were inhabitants of this neighbourhood - a deprived area of different nations in our town.

 Everybody was happy with us, because for them this street and these houses are always the place to pass time. A special kind of solidarity arose between us which touched me.
               
Updated 11-May-2011