Interviews, archive of memories, photo-walks, vdeoperformance, open gallery installation
)Pförtnerloge(, Fabrik Heeder, Krefeld, Germany
For the process-oriented art gallery Pförtnerloge in Krefeld, I developed a “memorial for dead spaces” (“Mahnmal für tote Räume“) which connected two points in time; the post-WWII city and the city of today. Collected stories, memories, associations, experiences, observations, maps, and photographs question the relationship between “spaces of death” and “dead spaces” at the same geographic coordinates over the past 80 years. The project examines the phenomenology of physical and imaginative space and their intersections through aspects of the body, play, and interaction in public space.
From April 29 to June 10, 2023, interested citizens had the opportunity to participate in work in progress at the gallery and share their memories and insights. The installation accompanying the project functioned both as a means of collecting memories and as a representation of the city’s palimpsest. The goal was to find out how children appropriated the city during the difficult after-war time and how they converted the landscape of ruins into a playground. “The ambivalent feeling of freedom in a dangerous and insecure environment starkly contrasts our current view of the city. Today’s city is less open and accessible than in the post-war period as a thoroughly regulated, thoroughly functionalized, and heavily monitored space, where the private interests of smaller privileged groups determine the quality of life of the majority” (Emmanuel Mir).
Videoperformance “Mahnmal für tote Räume”:
tonka malekovic 