{"id":75250,"date":"2025-10-22T12:42:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T10:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/?post_type=magazin&p=75250"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:25:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T16:25:48","slug":"life-off-the-grid","status":"publish","type":"magazin","link":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/en\/magazine\/what-holds-us-together\/life-off-the-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"Life off the grid: a visit to a commune"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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\n\tWhat holds us together<\/a><\/div>\r\n

\r\n Life off the grid: a visit to a commune <\/h2>\r\n\r\n
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Breakfast by the wood stove, water from a reed-bed treatment system: how practical is a life that does without comforts?
\nBy Jux (Jule) Schlutter<\/a> (photos), Calvin Thomas<\/a> (text)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n

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In the morning the stove crackles<\/strong> and outside the hens are clucking. On 18 hectares of land stand an old farmhouse, a barn, traditional orchards, greenhouses, ponds and a vegetable garden. For more than 30 years, people in Zarnekla, part of D\u00fcvier near Loitz in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, have been trying to live together, sustainably and freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The I.G.E.L. commune was founded at its current site, a former manor farm, in 1991. Back then it consisted of eleven adults and seven children. Only Roland, a co-founder from day one, is still there. The other members gradually moved away. When they bought the property, Roland remembers, \u2018the first thing we did was rip out the flush toilets\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n \n\n

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The main house was built around 1900<\/strong> and renovated by the commune\u2019s residents themselves in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n \n <\/figure>\n\n <\/div> \n\n\n \n\n \n \n\n

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The greenhouse in<\/strong> winter. In summer, food for the coming year is grown here.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n \n <\/figure>\n\n <\/div> \n\n\n \n\n \n<\/div>\n\n\n

The main house was already standing but was completely renovated. The residents did all the work themselves. They raised the roof structure and plastered the walls with clay. They built a sunroom into the barn, which serves as the meeting room. There is running water, but no drains. A reed-bed system treats the waste water. The dry separating toilets are outside the house. The residents turn the waste into natural fertiliser or collect it for political protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the residents are vegan and live largely on food they grow and make themselves. Every two weeks a lorry delivers organic goods they can\u2019t produce on site. The overall principle is to make as much as possible themselves \u2013 with the resources, capacity and energy they have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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