2021. Public Happening. Collaboration with Wolfgang Karl May. Nürnberg. GER
#soap #wall #act_of_purification #socialskin #temporality
CONTEXT:
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a crisis that has generated change and questions across all areas of society. Due to restrictions the municipality of Nürnberg organized a public exhibition in the old part of the city where 10 Artists participated.
The work has been created during the COVID-19 pandemic and combines three elements: the castle wall, as a symbol of security and protection, but also of isolation and the drawing of boundaries; soap, as a symbol of purification and as an everyday object, present/ ubiquitous not only during the (COVID-19) pandemic; and temporality, in the form of bursting soap bubbles that make transience and uncertainty tangible.
Through the work the wall experiences an act of purification. An attempt is made to wash away what cannot really be washed away – danger, uncertainty, history in the form of sediment. In this process, we take the city wall, which encloses the innermost part of the city, as the skin of the social body, on which the individual experience of the pandemic becomes collectively visible. On a biochemical level, soap provokes distance between the skin and the viruses, making them washable. Washing, therefore, appears as a ritual of protection and security. Finally, temporality becomes visible in the form of the ephemeral soap bubbles. The foam leaves hardly any trace it enchants, and is at the same time unpredictable. A pandemic whose residues are ephemeral? What comes after the bubbles burst?
This work was realized as part of the public program „Lost and Found,“ organized by the City of Nürnberg.
Watch the video of the performance here.
Press (selection):
Bayrische Staatszeitung: Elf künstlerische Duos interpretieren die Folgen der Corona-Krise
Nordbayer: “Lost & Found” eröffnet spektakulär im Nürnberger Burggraben
Photos: © Rudi Ott, Lowres Kirschner