STADTPLAN / CITY MAP
Student Project with focus on Public Arts – Art and Commemoration

For the introduction, several projects that took place at the Sarajevo Center of Contemporary Art (SCCA) will be presented. The Center has been exploring a new understanding of art through the development of various activities since it’s founding in 1996, directly after the end of the Bosnian War. Within this framework, Dakic herself, as well as other artists participating in the Center, produced works in the public realm that dealt with questions concerning cultural memory, such as the war and the end of socialism. A special focus was developed by the project “Deconstruction of Monuments”, organized in 2005 by the SCCA. The project researched memorials and the ideologies and structures of dominance expressed therein as well as forms for a “new memorial” on multiple levels. Dunja Blazevic, the director of the SCCA, will be invited to Weimar.
In addition, Danica Dakic will present additional projects in which she has been involved with questions of constructing identity and home (Heimat) in other locations.

This introduction forms the starting point for the students’ own reflection and artistic work on similar questions in relation to Weimar.
In close collaboration with the team of the MFA program, traces of forty years of a German Democratic Republic history are to be taken as an occasion to search for the visibility of this past in the city of Weimar in the through artistic interventions. (Due to the anniversary of the Bauhaus, placing a special focus on dealing with the different phases of its existence is conceivable.) With small temporary installations, interventions, performances or other artistic activities in hidden places in the city, the students will develop a city plan offering new artistic attractions.

For the conclusion of the semester a collective visit in Sarajevo is being considered, where together with the team of the SCCA, selected locations of artistic commemoration will be explored.


The participating artists are:
Johannes Abendroth (Germany), Alma Alloro (Israel), Anthony Antonellis (USA), Loukas Bartatilas (Greece), Grace Bayer Prince (Colombia), Juan Guillermo Caicedo Diaz Del Castillo (Colombia), Li-Shih Chen (Taiwan), Ben Craig (Ireland), Xing-Lang Guo (PR China), Sanela Jahic (Bosnia), David Knowles (USA), Jennis Li Cheng Tien (Singapur), Angeliki Makri (Greece), Natalia Matta-Landero (Chile), Kimberly Meenan (USA), Yvonne Morales-Traulsen (Mexico), Sofia Ntona (Greece), Thalia Raftopoulou (Greece), Carly Schmitt (USA), Rosa van Goudoever (Netherlands) and Eriphyli Veneri (Greece).

 

Projects:

NEW BRICKS ON THE BLOCK
Johannes Abendroth
Location: Foyer at Mensa am Park
Installation: 27th – 29th January, 7:00 – 19:00 Uhr

„Serielle Systeme, offene, geschlossene , produzierte , generativ sich wandelnde
Elementsysteme. […] Oder – einfach das Spiel mit Bausteinen, das Erkennen ihrer
Kombinationsfähigkeit, die Lust zu variieren, der Reiz, es nachzuvollziehen, neue
Bausteine zu erfinden?“
Friedrich Kracht *, Formfindungen 1991

After the ornament had been completely disregarded in early modernist architecture by influential contemporaries like Adolf Loos (Ornament and Crime), it gained massive popularity once again in late modernist architecture after 1960. This lasted through the 1980´s. Materials like concrete, plastic and synthetic fibers made it possible to replicate a single form in large numbers and to assemble them into repetitious patterns over large surface areas. Tessellations of molded blocks were often a popular means of design in the GDR "Kunst-am-Bau," or percent-for-art schemes. Usually they were used as gable ends, partitions or as outer walls in Plattenbau constructions. Even though molded blocks were not a particular feature of the socialist era, today in the context of concrete settlement constructions they evoke memories of that time.
In Weimar these decorative tessellations can still be seen on buildings from the former University for Architecture and Civil Engineering (today Bauhaus-University). For example, on the exterior wall of the Jakobsplan (student dormitory), outside the Mensa am Park -building, on the facade of the currently veiled Weimar Atrium building and in Weimar-West on the outer wall of the Albert-Schweitzer-School.
The temporary installation New Bricks On the Block alludes to the creative potential of decorative tessellations and commemorates its aesthetic.

* Friedrich Kracht (*1925 Bochum, 2007 Dresden) was a representative of the concrete art movement. Apart from studying in Dortmund and Dresden he also studied at the University for Architecture and Civil Engineering in Weimar form 1950 until 1951. His geometrical-abstract, constructivist or concrete late work was associated with Herman Glöckner and Max Bill and was first known in Eastern Germany, Poland and Hungary before later receiving worldwide recognition.

REMEMBER WHERE YOU LOST IT
Alma Alloro
Location: A sharing flat in Heinrich-Heine Straße 6
Date: 30th January, 20:00 Uhr and 31st January, 18:00 Uhr

eriphyli

Max was the first person I got to know in Weimar. He picked me up from the train station and brought me to his house. When we arrived at the old door of H. Heine Strasse 6, Max explained that I needed to turn the key counterclockwise. Soon I realized that everything there was working counterclockwise: The place was a mess, there was neither very hot water nor heating, and constant noise filled the apartment from the construction site next door. At that time it was really hard to find a flat in Weimar, so I slept in the hallway of this house for three months.
A few months later, as part of "City Map" I returned to the hallway of H. Heine Strasse 6. This time I was not homeless but a diva in a shining white dress and make-up. I created an electric musical performance, using synthesizer, keyboards, a Gameboy, an old television and a washing machine. I was celebrating my uniqueness and I did it my way. It was an attempt to gather people together in a colorful setting, for a radical and controversial performance. To make them feel at home and comfortable, I also made cookies and served tea.
The reason I find H. Heine Strasse 6 so special is not just because it was my temporary home when I first came to Weimar, but also because of the people living there. They are Weimar-born media and graffiti artists, who attract many interesting guests and activities. This place was my first entry into the alternative culture of Weimar. Now H. Heine Strasse 6 is going through a renovation process and soon my friends will have to move out. It would probably be impossible to find this type of old cheap house in Weimar again. My project was actually a memorial performance for a very special place in Weimar. A place that will soon no longer exist, but will always remain in my memory as the first place that welcomed me in Weimar.

PLATTENBAU(HAUS)
Anthony Antonellis
Date: 27th – 31st January

beehive

Plattenbau(haus) is a site specific installation in the form of a painted construction billboard. It sits in a vacant lot advertising a forthcoming Plattenbau complex.
A city’s architecture can be used as a way to manage its identity, culture, and even memory. As a city grows it creates layers of architecture, some with competing narratives. In Weimar there are many periods of historical significance which are represented architecturally in their original forms or re-staged. Buildings deemed of no architectural or cultural significance are demolished or reworked to fit the desired narrative. As a result authentic-reproductions of 18th and 19th century buildings attempt to repair the narrative and effectively reset the city to an earlier time. There has been little or no attempt to reconcile the GDR era architecture into the narrative which has resulted in architectural pentimento.
The term pentimento is used in fine art to describe trace elements leftover from an alteration. In the same way that an under-drawing or original brush mark can reappear in an oil painting, the scars and remnants of past architecture appear throughout a city. This phenomenon is seen with the Plattenbau of Weimar West. They are regarded as a post-war GDR relic and have been effectively written out of the city’s desired touristic and cultural image. By contrast the 1920’s Bauhaus structure the Haus am Horn fits quite well within the narrative. It can be argued that this single building holds more significance in the narrative than the sum of all the GDR architecture.
Plattenbau(haus) depicts a Weimar West Plattenbau complex created entirely from repeating Haus am Horn units. In folding together these two structures its objective is to bridge the gap in the narrative and to highlight the process in which the city’s memory can be defined through the manipulation of architecture.

COEXISTING WEIMAR (STILL TEMPORARY)
Loukas Bartatilas
Location: Different locations in Weimar

jennis

This project consisted of two Dachaufsteller (advertisement panels), located in various places around Weimar. On each Dachaufsteller, two different images of the city of Weimar and a short text were presented. The images were of places in Weimar where two different architectural styles coexist. Each of these buildings represents a historical period, demonstrating the city’s continuity and presence through time. The short texts ask passers-by to look beyond Goethe and Schiller, the official trademark of Weimar, and consider what else this city might have to offer.
The work came from research that focused on how post-GDR cities deal with their specific past, and how Weimar is presented and re-presented through touristic publications. Weimar is a place of great importance for German tourists, it is normally only presented as a city of great Classical history and occasionally mentioned as the founding place of the Bauhaus. Contrary to this, the city’s everyday life and mentality is absolutely related to the most recent GDR history and the political transformation over the last twenty years. This seems to be something that is purposely not mentioned at all.
This project is commenting on the selective image. It gives more value to the present, coexisting situation than to the mania of forgetting GDR history and seeing Weimar only through its Classical past.
The photos were exhibited using Dachaufsteller in order to re-appropriate this ordinary urban monument, which can be found all over the city center, outside of nearly every store. Moreover, it is an object connected with one specific use. By presenting it in a different context, next to other Dachaufsteller, this project aims to point out the possibly surprised reactions of its audience.

WEIMAR SAGEN, DIE SCHLANGENSTEIN BRÖTCHEN
Grace Bayer Prince
Location: Bäckerei Rose, Lisztstraße 1
Date: 29th January, 10:00 Uhr

postmodern

‘Die überlistete Schlange’, is a legend constructed by Weimar locals to explain the existence of the Schlangenstein monument. Built in the year 1787, it still stands today as a reproduction in the Ilm park. The Schlangenstein monument was given to Goethe as a sign of appreciation by the Duke Carl August. In the legend, this monument was created to honor a local baker, who saved the people of Weimar from a dreadful snake by placing poisoned bread in the reptile’s reach.
The work Weimar Sagen, Die Schlangenstein Brötchen (2010) revived, reintroduced and reconstructed lost oral traditions, or “Sagen” of Weimar, in contemporary contexts and everyday activities through a collaboration with one of Weimar’s traditional family businesses, the ‘Bäckerei Rose’. The legend was spread again in the form of a bookmark, specially created for this purpose, which was given to customers when they bought the ‘Schlangenstein Brötchen’.
One hundred twenty “Schlangenstein Brötchen” were sold in one entire working day at the Bäckerei Rose. One hundred twenty people in Weimar read the legend and hopefully shared it with others: They discovered a hidden legend in a small, snake-shaped Brötchen, that is now part of their memories when they encounter the Schlangenstein, the Bäckerei Rose or the taste of Guava, and any other element that they will now connect to their experience and memory of that day.
I've tried the Schlangenstein-Brötchen and they were really good! After that I visited the Bäckerei Rose with my daughter and her violin-teacher, and we brought more of these new Brötchen. She liked them and asked me to tell her about the legend; she asked me if there is poison inside it…
(From an email by a customer interested in further information)

SIE SIND HIER
Juan Guillermo Caicedo Diaz Del Castillo
Location: http://www.siesindhier.com

natalia

Sie sind hier is a work in two parts: a video intervention in the public space and a website displaying the “backstage” of such an intervention.
For three days, a video installation was placed at three different locations in the city of Weimar, first on one of the chairs in front of the sculpture on the Frauenplan, the next day on the small wall next to the Hummel bust on the Sophienstiftplatz, and finally on the staircase in front of the Herz Jesu Kirche.
During each of these three days one of these places had a TV with a video that showed a series of interviews of people from various countries that now reside in Weimar, speaking in their native languages (German, Greek, Spanish, Dutch, English and so on) talking about the streets that they lived on before moving to Weimar.
In these videos, the faces of the interviewees are not visible, instead the animated face of the famous person that gave his name to the street they live on now was displayed.
The animation was done with a home webcam application.
For the three video presentations electricity was supplied by the Hotel Am Frauenplan and the Deutsches Nationaltheater.
The website, http//:www.siesindhier.com, displays the tools used to construct the inner logic of the locations or subjects that were chosen, as well as a short text written about the idea of geography, geometry, history, identity and truth.

MASTERS OF FINE ART
Curated by Ben Craig

Date: 28th – 30th January, 11:00 – 14:00 and 16:00 – 20:00 Uhr
Location: MFA Building, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 15

discover

At the beginning of October 2009 the MFA program was informed that the building which housed the students would be demolished in 2010. Ben Craig, a new student to the program, saw the immanent destruction as a opportunity to use the building as an exhibition space. Craig observed that the time spent in the building was too focused on discussion, which he believed hindered creative productivity. Therefore his aim was to challenge this association and create an atmosphere that would leave the students with fonder memories of the building.As an artistic strategy Craig crowned himself curator. In this role he acted as a platform for the negotiation of ideas and as a scapegoat for their realization. Equally he encouraged students to engage in shared activities that would leave physical marks on the building, for example drawing on the walls in the stairway and throwing paint filled balloons at the façade. He also gathered all the shared resources from the building and placed them on a structure of tables and shelves located in the biggest room. The sculpture exposed the students' mess as a literal representation of how they had been using the space and brought them face to face with the responsibility of having to clean it up.Since October the building has hosted dinner parties, movie nights and gigs and shown the work of Eriphyli Veneri, Sanela Jahic, Kimberly Meenan, David Knowles and Sebastian Prince.

WEIMAR WECKER
Li-Shih Chen and Xing-Lang Guo
Opening: 28th January, 15:00 Uhr
Exhibition: 29th – 31st January, 7:00 – 16:00 Uhr
Location: Former site of VEB Uhrenwerk Weimar
(behind the feed shop ›Fressnapf‹, Rießnerstraße 12))

martin

In an interview regarding his geography readers, Michel Foucault mentioned “the map as an instrument of power/ knowledge.” Within strategical “applications of measure, inquiry and examination” behind a mapping process, a shaping of time and space, lies a structure of power.
A photo caught our attention while researching in the city archive: It was a picture of a smiling girl displaying a line of mass-produced clocks, each of which labeled “Weimar.” This was a fortunate encounter because our project would become an attempt to commemorate: Uhrenwerk Weimar, a lost mark on the city map and in city history.
When we found the former factory site all that remains today is a colossal wall, relics and a large area now covered with piles of bricks and lumps of concrete. The materiality of this forgotten space, and its timeless beauty, spoke for itself. Our first act was to build an interactive sound installation on the site: We recorded the alarms and ticking sound of the old Weimar clocks and then tried to put these relics back into the context of time, while also connecting with our audience's everyday life experience.
The second action was to find people who used to work there and to invite them to tell their story of the factory, in order to create an image of the depth this memory holds in the living fabric of the city. This process took most of our time and energy. However, with participation from local people and through our collaboration with brilliant partners, this process became the most productive part of this project.
The meaning behind the title Weimar Wecker is not only about waking up an alternative memory, although we do wonder why such a large factory did not already have strong presence in the public memory. It is also an attempt to focus on a more basic level - that is - to awaken people’s interest in storytelling. These actions were intended not only to be the link between public memory and other aspects of daily life, but also to encourage an engagement in the process of history and the formation of public memory.

DEPOTS
Sanela Jahic
Location: Chicago, May 2009

feelingmies

Depots is a series of photographs that render a commemorative testimonial to works of art kept in storage in places hidden or invisible, in private or in solitude. One set of images shows depots as interior places, where art works are deposited in order to be shown again and act again over prolonged periods of time. Another set depicts works of art stored outside, as left-overs from art projects forgone, left and resigned, as material residues of happenings in the past. The aesthetic of the Depot Series Photos contributes to or constitutes the myth surrounding these places and the works stored there.

ZWISCHEN DEN JAHREN 2010
David Knowles
Show: 27th January and 28th January, 19:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Installation: 27th – 31st January, 18:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Location: Jakobsaal im Pfarrhaus, Am Jakobskirchhof 9

loukas

This installation commemorates a microscopic slice of cultural life in the German Democratic Republic that has been scarcely noted in popular history. Punk music in the GDR was able to take root and grow in the gaps that emerged in state control in the time leading up to the Wende. The challenge for artists in developing their music was always one of space: where to play? Where can we be public? Die Madmans, one of the first punk bands in the GDR, was instrumental in establishing a new geography and a new terrain where this kind of cultural activity could take place. In Weimar this terrain overlapped significantly with the local religious community. Of all locations in Weimar the Jakobsaal, a small chapel in the house of a local pastor, was most important. In a place both sacred and public they found allies and audiences.

The memorial consists of two record players positioned at either end of the Jakobsaal. Each of the record players plays, continuously, a piece of music that has been re-composed using samples from the songs of Madmans. These songs are pressed into soft plastic dub plates made of acetate. As the records play and replay the sound quality of the recording begins to decay until there is nothing left but a harsh static. Like individual and collective memories of a certain place, this memorial is prone to degradation and decay. Eventually all traces of what once happened in this place will disappear.

Although dub plates use the same technological platform as the vinyl record, a technological reproducible medium meant for large scale distribution, their message is not literary, like a newspaper or novel, but closer to the oral legend. Though all media undergo a slow decay, this function is built into the dub plate itself. It is expected that its message will only be heard by a few…that it may in fact be dangerous. In order to protect the message the medium must be destroyed. Punk in the GDR shares this operational logic. Its messages were passed in secret. Its survival depended on it remaining safely buried.

THE COUNTERFORCE
Jennis Li Cheng Tien
Date: 31st January, 12:00 – 14:00 Uhr
Location: Kleingartenanlage Silberblick e.V., Steinhügelweg 2

sofia

The project revolves around the research on the founding of the "Schrebergarten" and the man (not the founder), Mr. Schreber, who had devised apparatus that looks like contemporary gym equipment and experimented with them on his children in support of his idea of how children's excessive energy should be released. He gave up on this method after realizing that it achieved limited results and instead came up with the idea of having children play healthily in gardens that are away from the city and in proximity to nature.

My work became something sculptural, a playground assembled of several modified modern pieces of gym equipment with a small house made from a crib sitting on top.
It is an installation that can be interpreted based on its static aesthetic qualities as well as through the experience generated by personal interaction with it.
It was a playground entirely in white that blended into the snow-covered garden so well that it almost became invisible. It seemed surreal and it caused people to gaze at it with bewilderment.

The final artwork is a synthesis of intellectual research and personal emotion. It boils down to the form of a sculpture: The mere functionalities of the original equipment have been translated into absurdity. The sculptural installation was constructed during the winter. The installation transformed the garden-scape into a place where all the surrounding trees and elements seemed to begin to correspond and play a role.
Despite an extremely harsh and controversial assumption that I had came up with based on my research, the installation in the actual context in the "Schrebergarten" and the weather conditions seemed to have contributed to a different abstract form of expression that stands on its own. While standing in a semi-open public space, it was open for free interpretation.

THE GROWING ROOM
Kimberly Meenan
Location: Kleingartenanlage Silberblick e.V., Steinhügelweg 3

sofia

A project focuses on gardening, fear, paradox and absurdity.
It is a windowless room in which to grow sunflowers in the middle of winter.

It is strange to walk through a wing of an unheated building and then suddenly enter into a brightly lit room where the feeling of heat and light (spring) is more overwhelming than the limitations of the space. The grow room is full of warmth, humidity, and light. It’s a synthesis between the seasons, the room, the plants, the care-giver and the visitors that stumble back to the secret space.

Of course, this project is not as simple as that. It’s not just a magical room where one feels a bit of summer bliss. The plants, humorous in their pots, become characters on a stage. Life... and the
moral debate that ensues. These plants were birthed with the goal of exposing them to the harsh winter. The goal was to watch a beautiful thing die in a series of abnormal contexts. What a morbid thought. This project calls attention to the absurdity and impossibility of controlling nature. We can not build a wall to hide the power of natural order; the rain, the flooding, the droughts, when the earth trembles... In our communities, we are safe from wild animals, yet we are our own predators. We have shelter, more than enough food, and are hardly ever satisfied...

The concept of this work changed in the process of having a private garden in the middle of winter in an old house, building the room and watching plants grow. A space was created, a room of contemplation, a place to think about death. To think about death, witness growth, and
watch things die.

The room speaks to the potential of a place with ordinary things.

WEIMAR AT SEA
Angeliki Makri
Date: 29th Jan, 15:00 – 20:00 Uhr and 30th Jan, 10:00 – 16:00 Uhr
Location: Hauptbahnhof, Schopenhauerstraße 2

sofia

Bringing boarding tickets in the form of paper ship(s) to the railway station, handing them to people who had just arrived in Weimar by train; I staged Weimar as “at sea” in terms of memory and introduced an element of play. The interaction with the paper ships, the call for the process of folding and unfolding in the hands or in the minds of the public while suggesting an element of danger, remained cool and playful. Nothing suggests the “case of emergency”. It is, however, present, offering a chance for critical recollection.
“Weimar at sea” takes place sailing the sea of commemoration, negotiating the relations between the present state of the city and its complex and contradictory past. The situation of ‘at sea’ is to speak about a potentially dangerous situation, associated with the seduction of capitalism, the illusion of ultimate gratification and how this eventually leads our own past to oblivion. Upon receiving a boarding pass for a fictitious city-ship, people were reminded not to forget the names of the places they should concentrate on for their own safety in case of emergency. Those places, highlighted on the map printed on the boarding pass folded into paper ships, were three well-commemorated shopping malls of Weimar, the ‘Atrium’ (at the ‘Gauforum’), the ‘Goethe’ and the ‘Schiller Kaufhaus’ which each showed a “muster station” sign placed there. ‘Deutsche Bank’ was mentioned as the fueling station since every ship needs fuel to sail.Many people took the boarding pass and left hurriedly, others refused to take theirs, perhaps because it could be mistaken for just another advertising trick while sometimes the whole process felt like running a touristic office, giving information to the travelers.

WHYMAR
Natalia Matta-Landero
Location: http://www.whymar.com

sofia

Whymar is a context-specific video piece hosted online under whymar.com.

Whymar is "a response to the unwondered". Whymar/Weimar is a play on words that opens the space for questioning the foreigner/traveller?s individual homeland experience, to confront her/himself with her/his own story when trying to deal with the local history.
Set up in Weimar, the research was directed towards my socio-historical and political backgrounds drawing on my early personal account of Chilean dictatorship in the early 80's, in contrast to the complex amalgam of daily experiences lived in the German city.
Through the music of Victor Jara, one of the representative figures of resistance towards Pinochet's regime, I juxtaposed his iconic political role with the monumental figures of Goethe-Schiller-Denkmal in the blurred scenario of a specially sensitive time; an ordinary Christmas day in the City centre of Weimar. Weimar is a city highly charged by political and cultural affairs and historical traumas that seem to have been concealed under the overexploited high-culture image of Weimar; Heart of German Culture. But Weimar is also the arena in which I have negotiated my individual space into a particularly over-shielded one. The physical location where I absorbed and incorporated its local social patterns into the daily grind of city life; while my inherent cultural memory has come to question its boundaries manifesting in the form of a commuting-blindness.
This space is not a physical one but an intrinsic mental construction of significations and transmitted cultural and historic common beliefs and understanding that has emigrated with me from Chile, a self-perceived global periphery, into Weimar, an in-transition eastern city to a western order, the Eurocentric model par excellence. After wandering through classicism, GDR
reminiscences, avant garde traces and holocaust memorials, the resultant admixture manifests in the form of a visual-limp, a spectacle that distorts perception, abstruse images-sounds of the past arise to the surface, my story emerges.
'Weimar, I have become blind, I have become aware, I commemorate my story,
I am history. Whymar.'

(K)EIN MO(NU)MENT
Yvonne Morales-Traulsen
Location: Schillerstrasse 5a (Thalia’s Bookshop side facade)
Date: 27th – 31st January, 17:00 – 23:00 Uhr

sofia

(K)EIN MO(NU)MENT was about commemorating a moment, the presence of the now. An animated slide projection using light as a metaphor stating that ‘being’ is recognizable. A pause of reflection, making something visible and invisible by deconstructing the context of the quotation by Octavio Paz “Gegen das Schweigen und das Getoeste erfinde ich das Wort” located on Thalia’s Bookshop side facade.

The slide projection also formed a dialogue between past and present, how something was and how something is. It was a dialogue between Nature and History, for this piece will never have the same projection effect if it is done again. In terms of the concept of commemoration, the invention of the Word plays a transcendental role, it is completely related to memory and permanence because we remember through words and reconstruct or deconstruct past events through them. In a peculiar way the idea that nature is "civilized" as it is flattened into an image also alludes to permanence, but, actually, in contrast to History, nature recurs, it is cyclic, it is somehow ephemeral and so are we. The question that emerges from this dialogue and these ideas encountered is, then, about how our ephemeral existence copes with the permanence and immortalization of events, figures or monuments.

DER BALKON
Sofia Ntona
Date: 27th – 31st January
Location: Hotel Elephant, Markt 19

sofia

On the front façade of the Elephant hotel in Weimar, a second balcony, identical to the one that already exists, was constructed and installed. In doubling an architectural element of the building, I was interested in dismantling/defusing the strong symbolic character of the original balcony, which was added to the hotel after its reconstruction in 1938.

The Elephant Hotel, an historical building in Weimar, has been a place of representing power for many politicians. Its architectural transformations and also the various ways in which it functioned as a hotel and Interhotel within different political situations reveal an interesting history, imprinted on the architectural elements of the building. The hotel was demolished and rebuilt in 1938 by Adolf Hitler and the architect Hermann Giesler and on the front façade of the new building a balcony was added. The symbolic language of the balcony, as an architectural element that represents power, makes the balcony - together with the façade of the hotel - one of Weimar’s tourist’s attractions today.
Temporarily adding a second balcony to the façade of the hotel changes the way it is viewed as a monument, without being immediately noticed, since it could be percieved as a pre-existing element.

SCHEUNENVIERTEL MONUMENT
Carly Schmitt
Location: Goetheplatz

sofia

Interactive sculpture / video installation concealed under a pile of wood chips.

A temporary video sculpture that documented the history, demolition and shredding of an historic army base in Nohra was placed at Weimar's ground zero, on the Goetheplatz. This video installation was hidden under a pile of shredded building refuse taken from Nohra. Only the soft sound and masked glow of televisions hinted at what was inside. Newspaper ads and a plaque invited viewers to brush aside, dig-in, and take home the free wood chips. Sifting through these pieces of history exposed video documentation of the site, and created a catalyst for conversation regarding this mysterious and controversial piece of Weimar history.

The air field and army barracks in Nohra played a complex role in 20th Century history: Established at the end of World War I and further developed during World War II, this place housed “the first concentration camp in Germany,” hosted American troops at the end of WWII, and later became the largest Russian helicopter base in East Germany. The barracks is now being demolished with funding from the European Union.

This sculpture on the Goetheplatz was designed to connect this mysterious and soon-to-be demolished space with the people of Weimar. High in pedestrian traffic, the Goetheplatz has a strong connection to the often favored history of Weimar Classicism. This sculpture, a huge pile of historic building refuse, stained the Goetheplatz and sat in dialog with the empty plinth of Duke Carl Alexander: A reminder of how histories are erased but not always forgotten. This project aims to provoke a conversation regarding Weimar's recent history, while at the same time re-visiting a collective history that links the 20th century with the time of Goethe and Schiller.

CAETERIS SPARIBUS WASCHSALON
Juan G. Caicedo Diaz Del Castillo and Thalia Raftopoulou
Opening: 27th January, 17:00 Uhr
Exhibition: 27th – 30th January , 8:00 – 22:00 Uhr
Location: SB Waschalon, Am Graben 47

sofia

CAETERIS SPARIBUS WASCHSALON is a memorial to the little paper crumbles that we lose in our pockets when we do our laundry. Shaped like a mini museum and located in an actual Waschsalon (laundromat) at Grabenstr. 47 in Weimar, CAETERIS SPARIBUS was a compilation of interventions using the paper crumbles as main material, subject and theme:
AD PORTAS was a composition of papers in a topographic arrangement over a grid on a table beside the door entrance.
AD ASTRA was a temporary intervention in the exhibition space that took place before the opening and simulated a "miracle" where the papers would fly out of the washing machines and dryers towards the light fixtures in the ceiling. Photos of the AD ASTRA were displayed in the "exhibition" as documents of the journey of the papers.
Everyday was a video animation of a succession of pictures of paper crumbles looping along with the song Everyday by Carly Comando, made popular by the youtube celebrity Noah Kalina in a direct relocation of his homonymous video.
EXEMPLI GRATIA consisted of papers laid out in a museum-style fashion, displaying information about individual crumbles such as source and washing cycle, located in the lost and found section of the laundromat.

During the opening and the whole time of the intervention the Waschsalon was functional and running. 

COLOR ME WEIMAR
Rosa van Goudoever
Date: 28th January, 13:00 Uhr, 29th January, 8:00 Uhr, 30th January, 11:00 Uhr and 31st January, 15:30 Uhr
Location: Starting at Tourist Office Weimar

sofia

What we see is what we know. But what if we try to forget what we know for a moment? What if we were tourists in our own city? Would it be possible to see our well-known world anew?Color me Weimar is a guided audio tour through the streets of Weimar. Rosa van Goudoever (NL) guides the public through the city. While she walks, the public hears her voice in their headphones.Rosa made use of her own position as a newcomer in Weimar to create this audio tour. By talking about her experiences and about her thoughts on what’s visible and by asking simple questions, such as: ‘What would it be like to cross the street as a kid?’ she invites the listeners into her thoughts and directs the public’s view.‘We are two different persons in the same place. We have different backgrounds and different knowledge. I don’t know what you see.’‘Almost every building in Weimar has been given a color. The buildings are painted. The layer of paint could be the building’s dress. I wonder if the buildings have always been wearing the same dresses. Perhaps 200 years ago their dresses looked totally different and gave the city a totally different appearance.‘                                                                                         2 excerpts from ‘Color me Weimar’

Both tourists and inhabitants of Weimar participated in the tour. After the walk, we shared our different views of the city and its streets.
Sharing views is a way to gain knowledge. Placing different experiences next to each other without judging them creates space for new thoughts and experiences.

TUPPERWAR
Grace Bayer Prince, Thalia Raftopoulou, Eriphyli Veneri
Date: 30th January, 15:00 Uhr
Location: M18, Marienstraße 18

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The Tupperwar group focused on the socializing aspect of the American company Tupperware, which distributes its products- plastic kitchen utensils- solely through the process of home parties, in the form of small gatherings for displaying and selling its items. Appropriating personas as Tupperladies and inverting this particular method of promotion, Lady Bell, Lady Grey and Lady Lee went from door to door in four different neighborhoods of the city of Weimar, collecting – instead of selling – Tupperware and plastic containers in a five-day performance.
In this way, they succeeded in collecting 100 items. Invitations to the final event were sent to the people who participated with their plastic containers, where a sculpture built from these containers would be inaugurated.
By adding the volumes of the 100 collected items, the Tupperwar group came up with the final number of 0,1479176176 m3, which they transformed into a 5x5m marked surface on the floor where the event took place. After receiving the Tupperware from each person, after having experienced this particular way of encountering people in Weimar, the Tupperwar group no longer considered these plastic items to be objects but rather the space they represented, as space that people gave them, the space that they finally gave back to the participants in the form of a stepping ground for socializing. With the participants attending this event, the pieces of the ‘sculpture’ were finally joined together.