Zeitlupe gGmbH, a non-profit organization, and its managing director Michael Heissenberg have been committed since 2014 to preserving old fruit varieties in northern Germany and beyond. Inspired by his time in the early 1980 with artist Joseph Beuys (1921 – 1986), whose tree-planting actions left a lasting impression on him, Heissenberg built up a network of mostly Demeter and organic farms as well as public spaces. His project now comprises over 8,000 trees across 120 sites and around 1,700 preserved varieties, making it one of the major conservation projects for historic fruit varieties in Germany.

The focus lies not only on preserving the varieties themselves, but also the knowledge associated with them: a genetic fingerprint database has already been created for 1,000 pear varieties, with work underway on 1,500 varieties of apples, cherries, and plums.

Beyond this core project, Heissenberg is committed to fostering young talent to secure the future of his plantings, establishing climate-resilient wild hedges and „climate-change forests,“ as well as pursuing international collaborations for knowledge exchange in light of the major challenges posed by climate change.

Since Zeitlupe’s core mission centers on „preserving vanishing cultural heritage,“ it has also built up a growing collection of artistic estates connected to Joseph Beuys’s students, bringing together around 2,500 art objects with the aim of organizing exhibitions in the future.

This connection to the visual arts led Zeitlupe — whose fruit variety collection also includes the 100 most endangered pear varieties — to partner with botanical artist Brigitte Hofherr, aiming to depict these pear varieties as true to nature as possible while still being clearly recognizable as works of art.