Dora Djamila Mester
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    • me and the garden
    • community building
    • sexuality * intimacy * relationships
    • art and beauty
    • all my works
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  • activism & green transition
  • education & community building
  • garden projects
    • KK33 Budapest * community in a historic garden 2008-2013
    • Feldmár Summer University 2015
    • Muiderslot * a medieval herb and vegetable garden 2015-2017
    • Laterna Magica Amsterdam * gardening with children 2016-2020
    • SET community gardens Amsterdam (NL) 2018 – running
    • HOLD base * garden * nature * art * care * seat of learning (HU) 2025-
    • Campo Para°Diso (IT) 2025-
  • In Touch Amsterdam
    • Running projects
      • SET community gardens Amsterdam 2018-
      • community oven 2024 – running
      • Beyond Gender 2022-2025
    • Past projects
      • STEK Oost Amsterdam community garden & atelier 2024 January-August
      • Three tier garden 2021-2022
      • Using the voice and body in the classroom (VOICE) 2021-2023
      • Integral Sexual Education and Empowerment in Schools (ISEX) 2021-2023
      • DRAW the lines of safety (DRAW) 2018-2021
      • The BODY project
      • Sex-ed in schools
        • Intimacy, Relationships and Interculturality in Youth Work (IRIS) 2018-2021
      • Pestalozzi teachers training
      • Body, society, culture: together for integration
  • art
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    • zen videos
    • creating spaces
    • community art
    • dance
    • Erotica
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KK33, Budapest – community in a historic garden

KK33 Budapest – community in a historic garden | Hungary| 2008-2013

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When my son was born, we moved to live in a hundred-year-old Art Nouveau building in Budapest. All of  a sudden, I got the chance to work in a big community garden. It was our garden, with huge trees going beyond the roof, high beyond the city. With an old fig tree, bushy, its branches like human arms and legs spreading around the deep purple irises.

 

I was the one in charge of the redesign, after decades of devastation, the reborn of this garden. Without previous experience but using my skills as an economist by training, I applied for financial support to the local government. With the help of garden architects, a historic metal work restaurateur and with professional gardeners we removed the discard of the last seventy years of war, revolution, and the indolence of the years of socialism and restored the beauty of a hidden historic garden in the heart of an old city.

 

 

 

IMG_1048I found myself learning the names of the flowers, listening to their needs, what they do and do not like. I had to work with dirt, soil, water. With life and death. I got a lot from this beautiful place. This garden thought me a lot about time, rhythm, about my inner world and a lot about my creating power.miksa

 

The garden project also served to build a community in between the people of the old houses. Artists, pensioners, families with small children started to use the garden, to meet, to talk, to organize neighbor events.

 

 

 

 

 



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