NEKROLOG

spacial installation / books, wooden boxes, wooden sofa, wooden armchair,UV-lamps, monitor, DVD-Player / 2016

The installation deals with visibility and invisibility of information, with the retelling of stories and their authorship. The installation is based upon extracts from a list of migrants died on their way to Europe since the year 2000.

The project “The Migrants’ Files”, complied by freelance journalists and organizations for data journalism, has set itself the task of collecting information on the causes of death of refugees on the European external borders from networks, media reports and other publications. For my installation, I have extracted dates, sources and URLs of each individual event from this public database and transferred it to books in handwriting. Chronologically, event for event spread on 3192 pages in 29 books. If one takes a book, however, nothing can be read in it. The pages are white and empty. Only when one decides to take place in the constructed “living room” situation, the writing becomes visible.

The performatively transmitted material becomes an archive, the usability of which can be determined by the individual viewer and thereby becomes part of the work itself. The structure and the remains of the former storage room becomes equally part of the installation and evokes additional images.