Lecture «Leaving Home Function» in Münsingen BE

Today we visited, together with Hansjörg and Res and all our wives, the lecture of the artist collective «Leaving Home Function».

The three women and two men of "Leaving Home Function" drove four Ural sidecars from Halle (D) by land via Russia to New York. (Of course, they couldn't drive on the easternmost part of Russia and, of course, the Bering Strait.)

source: http://leavinghomefunktion.com/de/

We enjoyed two and a half extremely exciting and entertaining hours of a presentation held by the entire group. I would have liked to see a few more photos and films - but they will probably be used for the book and the movie  to come.

The five young sculptors have experienced many adventures with their very puncture-prone Ural motorcycles ... but they had quite a naive approach to the matter. The choice of the motorcycle e.g. can hardly be justified with good research - the susceptibility of old Ural motorcycles - especially with the heavy load on this expedition - is commonly known. In addition, no one of them had ever driven a motorcycle before nor had anyone an idea about mechanics. But this is "only" a technical aspect, which nevertheless plays a decisive role in planning and executing a journey like this. The amount of time spent on repairs could be used for better. However, technical problems make it very easy to get in touch with the local population.

source: http://leavinghomefunktion.com/de/

It was impressive to me that during the two-and-a-half-years of the expedition, they always slept together under an open tent roof. They did not have any tents with them, but consciously chose a kind of common bedroom to shape the processes of the dynamic in the group. So you could not retire and had to face the group. Exciting - but also difficult, I think.

source: http://leavinghomefunktion.com/de/

In order to get further east from Yakutsk in Siberia, they had to transport the four sidecar motorcycles around 1600 km on a river because there is no coherent road network. That is also the reason why we had buried our original plan to drive to the Bering Strait relatively quickly.
Leaving Home Function has built a float construction and a small ship propeller driven by an adventurous construction on the cardan drive of the Urals.

Unfortunately, they did not come very far after this "boat trip" into a restricted military area due to technical problems and were evacuated by the local authorities. Through their media presence they had great support from the population and many authorities. The motorcycles were stored in a container somewhere in Siberia and are still standing there, waiting for some crazy adventurers to repair them and keep going - or back ...

They flew to Alaska via Magadan on the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and continued their journey with the four motorcycles they had started in Germany with and which they had had to give up the autumn before.

What an impressive adventure!