Wenn das Gebäude nicht mehr trägt
When Buildings No Longer Hold
Four-channel audio piece for a performance by remote-controlled architectural models, 15', 2014
Language: German
Wenn das Gebäude nicht mehr trägt is a site-specific performance for four architectural models and a public sculpture in the city of Recklinghausen in the former coal mining region of western Germany. Situated on a square at the edge of the medieval centre and in front of an imposing Neo-Renaissance city hall, two oversized naked men and a naked woman are meant to depict ideal citizens. They carry reduced versions of what was, in the nineteen-eighties, to represent the entire city: the city hall itself, a church and a coal mine winding tower. Today they all face the construction site of a gigantic shopping mall. The three emblematic architectural structures and the commercial newcomer were given voices and the ability to move. Driving around the bronze as if it were a roundabout, they philosophise about their past and present roles as institutions, question their survival strategies and agree that they are not limited to their competing facades: every stone finds an echo in every passer by.
Produced for the project Archipel inVest curated by KunstRepublik, Recklinghausen (DE). Performed by Tanja Knaus, Francisco Rozas, Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler.