Ars Natura

Signpost on the Ars Natura art trail, here as X8a near Bad Zwesten

Ars Natura is a project that is turning the Barbarossaweg and Wildbahn long-distance hiking trails into art hiking trails in Central Germany . The project sponsor is the Ars Natura Foundation , which provides the hiking trails with art objects . The foundation was founded in 2001 by the artists Sandrino Sandinista Sander and Karin Lina Adam. It is based in Spangenberg in northern Hesse , the place where the two hiking trails cross.

course

The Barbarossaweg, marked as X8 long-distance hiking trail , runs mainly in an east-west direction in north Thuringia and north Hesse from Kyffhäuser to Korbach . The Wildbahn, marked as long-distance hiking trail X3, runs predominantly in a north-south direction from Höxter in East Westphalia to Bad Brückenau in northwest Bavaria and crosses parts of southern Lower Saxony and the east of Hesse .

Planning and realized sections

There are plans to extend the Ars Natura art hiking trail to a distance of 700 km so that it becomes a total work of art with international participation and worldwide attention. By 2017, a total of 375 works of art were displayed over 325 km.

In 2001 the first section was opened as a circular route on the Heiligenberg between Felsberg and Melsungen with 15 works of art. By 2012, works of art were realized along the Barbarossaweg in the section between Treffurt and the Bad Wildungen district of Dülfershof on thirteen sections with a total length of 170 kilometers, whereby the border to Thuringia was crossed at Heldrastein in 2010 . Three circular hiking trails near Bad Zwesten (hiking signs X8a) and Gudensberg (X8b), which branch off the main route of the Barbarossaweg, and the Spangenberger Runde formed by a crossbar between X3 and X8, complement the through path .

Along the Wildbahn hiking trail, in the section from Kassel to Rotenburg an der Fulda, works of art were installed on seven sections with a total of 70 kilometers.