Today, on the Day of German Unity, I carried out a performance in Schöppingen.
On a traffic street, I wrote with chalk the positive words and demands of East German citizens of 1989/90.
With a high-pressure cleaner I wiped them away. They disappeared – but through the act of cleaning, the words remain as traces, bright and visible on the street surface. The labor of erasing became its own inscription. This gesture recalls what many in the East had envisioned: a democratic renewal of the GDR, not the restoration of Western capitalism. Their wishes for a democratic socialism were swept away, overwritten by a West German narrative of “liberation.”
The traces of those erased wishes are still there. And perhaps the disillusionment many people feel today with democracy and politics can be traced back to these silenced demands – long present, never fully answered.
On Monday at 12 noon, I invite all citizens and interested parties
to the street in front of the artists' village of Schöppingen.
There, at the instigation of the municipality, my work will be removed from the street –
following complaints about the visible lettering that was ‘left behind’ by the cleaning process during the performance. I will be present to document the event and am open to discussion.
My offer to communicate the work together, invite citizens and develop it further in a participatory manner, was rejected by the mayor. As the mouthpiece of the municipality, he has thus decided against this dialogue. This is painful –but perhaps this moment in particular shows what my work has been talking about from the beginning: how East German voices and memories are still being dealt with today
It only takes ten minutes
to make democracy and freedom and even Capitalism disappear.
Using the same technique
that made them visible –
The words stood on the street as shadows from the cleaning.
That's why the street had to be cleaned again.
Now there is only a bright surface there.
It's a shame.
Because it was so easy.
And because you can still see
that something once stood there.
Ost
Unbelehrbar, undemokratisch, undankbar
-
Belehrend, undemokratisch, beliebt
West
Wer spricht über wen – und warum?
Dieses Projekt lädt ein, genauer hinzuschauen. Zu widersprechen. Oder zu erzählen, was einem selbst zum Thema einfällt.
