Book Launch at the former Stasi prison in Rostock: an evening of exhibition tours, discussions, and an intensive exchange about art and remembrance.
How do you get water into a book?
This was a central question Marie Jeschke repeatedly asked herself during the development of her first monograph. She would have loved to put all her pictures into the water and take her readers there with her. For Marie Jeschke, this is not only the place where her artworks are created, but also the medium in which all memories and information are inscribed. In "Fluide Grenze", the artist embarks on a multi-sensory exploration of escape experiences across the wet borders of the former GDR.
Closely interwoven with her own biographical events, she repeatedly engages in a dialogue with the locations as well as in a lively exchange with historians such as Dr. Jenny Linek.
The result is a book that also manages to depict the fluidity and simultaneity that we can experience when we dive into water.
In early March, Marie Jeschke presented her book in the rooms of the former Stasi prison in Rostock and, together with curator Susanne Burmeister and memorial site director Dr. Steffi Brüning, gave a guided tour through the eponymous exhibition "Fluide Grenze". Visitors were not only able to discover the artworks that form the basis of the book, but were also taken on a journey between past and present. The sensitively balanced interplay of art and installations in the space of the former prison allowed for a deep immersion into the subject matter. The evening was rounded off by descriptions of the site, such as the former open-air courtyard for inmates, whose shockingly small area has now been filled with an installation by Marie Jeschke. In 135 blue buckets, the artist collected and displayed 1629 liters of Baltic Sea water. Symbolically for 135 people who drowned while attempting to escape across the Baltic Sea.
The exchange with and among the audience that evening was visibly moving.
We are delighted that "Fluide Grenze" now provides a permanent imprint of what is depicted and remembered, thus making an important contribution to our culture of remembrance that extends far beyond the art scene.
Text: Luisa Voita
