How an art centre in a former power station is harnessing the word ‘no’ to help save the planet

It is a given that in order to save the planet we in the cultural sector, as much as anyone else, need to embrace the principles of “less is more” and “enough is enough”. But rarely has the notion of stepping off the art world’s profligate carousel been as effectively and comprehensively put into practice as at E-Werk Luckenwalde. The former East German power plant situated just south of Berlin now operates as a sustainable contemporary art centre, having been taken over in 2017 by the art collective Performance Electrics. The collective's founder, artist Pablo Wendel, co-directs E-Werk with his partner Helen Turner.

Using what Wendel dubs “Kunststrom”—or “art power”—the defunct brown coal power station has been transformed into a beacon of institutional eco-friendliness, with its fossil fuel generators now converted to run on locally sourced waste wood from the surrounding Brandenburg forest.

Such is the success of this art-powerhouse that E-Werk now not only meets its own energy needs but also supplies local businesses and households. It also sells surplus power back to the national grid with all profits feeding back into E-Werk’s projects.

These projects reflect the art centre’s eco-ambitions. In 2021, for example, it hosted the German premiere of the Golden Lion-winning opera-performance Sun & Sea in the Bauhaus designed swimming baths next door, with the event—including underfloor heating for the performers—entirely powered through E-Werk’s wood gas energy. Ironically, given it is a performance dealing with catastrophic climate change, this was so far the only iteration of Sun and Sea to run on a sustainable power source.

Next month, E-Werk continues to enhance its reputation as both a radical and environmentally sound institution by hosting The Drop Out: Tell Them I Said No, a two-day programme of discussions, workshops, concerts and performances (3-4 May). It aims to underline the importance of restraint as a weapon of protest, with organisers explaining that the programme is devoted to “the power, politics and potential of saying no”.

Part of the title and much of the inspiration behind this festival of refusal comes from the writer and critic Martin Herbert’s collection of essays Tell Them I Said No, published in 2016. The collection is devoted to artists including Lutz Bacher, David Hammons, Agnes Martin and Trisha Donnelly, all of whom for various reasons took the decision to withdraw from the mechanisms and machinations of the art world. Helen Turner, who has co-curated The Drop Out with E-Werk’s Katharina Worf, says: “I read Martin’s book as a disgruntled member of the cultural landscape and was really inspired by this idea of artists dropping out in order to affect change.”

Taking Coomer’s idea of artistic withdrawal as a springboard, The Drop Out’s programme explores the implications and permutations of denial, dissent and opting out. Maria Alyokhina of the protest-art group Pussy Riot is sharing her experience of protest, prosecution and imprisonment in Russia; while the Berlin-based artist Candice Breitz is talking with the actor Lamis Ammar about the impact of being sidelined and stigmatised; and the writer and curator Hettie Judah is leading discussions into how artist and art worker parents can gain agency and resilience in the notoriously child-unfriendly art world.

There are performances from Eve Stainton and Florence Peake, who are responding to ideas of co-operation, struggle and vulnerability among artists. The New York-based artist Asad Raza and the designer and curator Prem Krishnamurthy, meanwhile, are offering more light-hearted contributions in the form of an open sauna and karaoke session, along with a soil workshop for children.

The overall aim according to Turner is to provide a platform “for artists who have been brave enough to say: this isn't working for me, how can we rethink the cultural landscape in order to enact a better system and to do this in as sustainable a way as possible?” To this end, every aspect of the specific Drop Out programme has been devised with environmental considerations in mind. The use of train travel, for example, is advocated for in the contracts of participants, and vegan food is served in the outdoor bar and kitchen. Both participants and audiences also benefit not only from E-Werk’s very particular power source, but also its in-house transport system, which takes the form of an American fire engine converted to run off wood gas.

Building on a legacy

The Drop Out embodies the holistic approach to climate action at the heart of E-Werk.

“We wanted to use an old coal station as an image… to transform it into an example of how progress in society is possible,” Wendel declared at the time the art centre opened, in 2019. “By connecting electricity with art we were fusing function with metaphor—after all, energy is the purest metaphor for art there is!”

The aim, Turner says, is to “think about the institution from every angle through a sustainable lens”. She adds that in order to be effective in changing attitudes it is important to practice, rather than preach.

Turner acknowledges that there is no simple, one-track route to success. “Pablo and I are interested in doing things in a fun way, we don’t want to be too dogmatic, but instead to show that it is fun to problem solve and come up with creative, innovative solutions,” she says.

“We are all just trying to do the best we can, the most important thing is just to do something and accept the imperfections in the process and then you can ameliorate change,” she continues.

And as in the forthcoming Drop Out programme, sometimes this can mean taking action by actively saying no.

• The Drop Out: Tell Them I Said No, E-Werk Luckenwalde, Luckenwalde, 3-4 May