• 2016 Joint exhibition of Metropolis in Constellation Studios

• 2023 Concertante installation in Canetti house

After the city administration’s initial, surprisingly positive reaction to this intervention in urban space, including the prospect of extending its duration, it was finally decided that the works would have to be dismounted on the original date after all. The following day, a double-page article appeared in the leading daily newspaper offering private companies the option to lease the monuments, renovate them at their own expense, and in return use them for marketing purposes.

In September 2018, coinciding with the anniversary of the Farroupilha War, when the gaúchos celebrate their traditions with horse parades and barbecues, the course of the défilé was inaugurated with 21 monotypes set in cast resin. None of the interviewers from TV, print or online media displayed any interest in the materials used in the prints.

Thirteen monuments in the city centre of Porto Alegre were selected and the emplacement of their missing inscription panels was measured out. A special branding iron was made for them, the shape of which took on a pattern from the pavement.
A particular challenge was that some of the monuments were under the administration of the federal government, others of the city. Adair Gass, who was working for the Goethe Institute at the time, was great at negotiating with the authorities. She knew how not to jeopardise the project by not disclosing that the monotypes contained horse testicles and tail hair.

What is the potential of a city like Porto Alegre? Ambitious monuments have been created, commemorating or intended to commemorate men, heroes, and events, that to us as descendants are a real challenge. But a challenge in what? The metal plates that once indicated what and who the monument was about, are for the most part now missing. Has memory disappeared along with them?

Are achievements such as the participatory household project that was devised here or the World Social Forum that began in 2001, both of which have deeply inscribed themselves in the memory of the entire world, better forgotten in the gaúcho capital?
In a temporary intervention lasting roughly half a year, the vacant spaces, where descriptive text plates have disappeared from the plinths, were filled with substitute images: monotypes printed on paper and cast in resin. They cover up the stones’ injuries and refer at the same time to the great tradition of the gaúchos.

Within the context of a concurrent solo exhibition on Ottjörg A.C. in the federal state museum, Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul (MARGS), in which, among other things, prints from the foundation piles of the Imperial Palace in Berlin were exhibited, questions arise concerning memory, memorial culture, and the deeds of heroes.

With the Vagabonds Act of 1547, Edward VI, King of England, ordained that any able-bodied Englishman who was out of work for more than three days should be branded with a V for vagabond or an S for slave and appropriated.
The privatisation of commonly farmed land – the commons – had rendered many small farmers landless and thus unemployed. In 16th-century England, in the early days of capitalism, that which happened a little later to Africans on a massive scale was practiced with white Christians. Some 200 years later, Adam Smith stretched out his invisible hand, thus providing the British with both an excuse and an explanation. How will we generate The Wealth of Nations 500 years after Edward’s Vagabonds Act?

What family memories remain? What does one know about one’s parents and ancestors? And are there things one does not know about one’s parents? Where are these stories recorded, and when can they be brought to light?

Numerous projects exhibit different perspectives from the same and different family members.

In the center are the conflicts of one family that formed between Europe and old Indochina over the last 100 years. The mother, Le Thi Hai was the temple psychic, who died young. The father, Harry, a German Social Democrat, had to flee at a young age after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the German Kaiser. He served the next twenty years in the French Foreign Legion. The daughter, Lina, moved to Paris after the death of her father, at the age of 18. Since 2006, she has been living in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. After more than 60 years, Lina returned to her birthplace, Hanoi, in 2015 with her daughter, Malu, who, like Harry, was also born in the Rhineland in Germany. Malu’s daughter Nadi joined them in Hanoi. Nadi had been raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and was now studying in Berlin.

Lina’s brother is French. He left North Vietnam in 1954, with the last group of French engineers to escape. He was now visiting his wife’s family in Hanoi.

Nadi attempted to contact her ancestors through a psychic in Seancen, which Lina found a bit questionable. The three women were all drawn to this in some way, but had varying feelings of confidence.

Hoping to come to some closure regarding the Foreign Legion, the spoke with generals who had become soldiers at the hands of the French, and learned the discipline and tactics necessary to drive the French, Americans, and most recently, the Chinese, from their country.

What fears did they have to face? What ideas and expectations are promoted in Vietnam and suppressed in Europe?

What were the personal struggles they faced? What sense of peace could be found? What did the conflict bring?