If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it’s useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then the next day you probably do much the same again—if to do that is human, if that’s what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time.
“The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” — Ursula K. Le Guin
For my project, Ordnung! I recover and document forgotten, small-scale and often trivial artefacts and their stories. These found objects undergo a cleansing and reconstructing processes before becoming complete exhibits. “Ordnung!” encourages a focused examination of the recent German history of tyranny and horror and inescapable post 1945 consequences.
The very first exhibits from this project were displayed in the Galerie Bernau from October 3 to November 30, 2020, as a part of “The Art of Peace”- exhibition series. The Victory in Europe Day in 2020 marked the 75th anniversary commemorating the profound turning point of 1945, the new beginning and the liberation both from the war and National Socialism. Part of the series is presently on loan to the State of Brandenburg.
The exhibits were created between 2018 and 2024 from found objects as their source material, which I came across during my research in the Barnim Nature Park north of Lobetal. Nature is reclaiming its domain here, allowing the invasive man-made structures to become invisible over time. Here I find artefacts and objects such as bullet casings of various calibres, canteen dishes and cutlery, wine and beer bottles, old belts and shoes, gas masks and training blank cartridges from Czechoslovakia. Their condition seems to make them worthless for the treasure hunters who also roam these woods. What did not arouse their interest or was worthless in their eyes, is simply left behind: incomplete, fragmented or broken shards. And yet this supposed “trash” carries the traces of history. I, in turn, gather them from the grounds and reconsider them for my arrangements.
Video
May-July 2020 | This video’s sound was created based on field recordings from the forest where the objects were found, as well as by the sound these objects make.