memory matter.
«Memory Matter. The Relationship Between Objects and Our Self» / «Das Zeug zum Erinnern» explored the relationship between objects and human memory, asking how things accumulate stories, histories and cultural meaning through use and imagination. The exhibition brought together artists who approached this question from personal and transnational perspectives, with a particular focus on descendants of historical witnesses.
Curated by Professor Sophie-Charlotte Opitz and presented at Museum Villa Rot in Burgrieden in 2022, the exhibition featured works by Christian Boltanski, Jan Borreck, Sarah Cwynar, Cinzia Delnevo, Sinje Dillenkofer, Johannes Gramm, Chris Harrison, Barbara Iweins and Michaela Putz.
What remains when a witness is gone? The installation
«1.–51.» is built around a single surviving testimony, the diary
of Walter Heinisch, who was forcibly deported from Silesia
to the Soviet Union by the Red Army in 1945 and did not return. The diary ends in September, shortly before his death from exhaustion in the camp. Photographing each page of the diary, the installation confronts us with a past reality that has shaped our European community. In this way, the work uses the testimony of the past to raise questions about the future of our society.
