picture © Kai Martin Ulrich
Even though – thanks to Corona – just 50 visitors were able to attend the five worship services held during the exhibition period, that wasn’t a problem for the Innenleben exhibits. The 13 ultra-short texts printed on tarpaulins were attached to the outside of the church windows. Like this they could be examined at any time. The Innenleben exhibition venue for a theme dealing with the inner life, the world of feelings and thoughts, was thus the outer facade of the Kulturkirche Bremerhaven.
picture © Kai Martin Ulrich
In a previous competition, almost 600 texts with a maximum of 250 characters were submitted. A jury of three (Pastor Andrea Schridde, Bremen artist Silke Mohrhoff, dramaturge and editor Elke Brand) then selected the 13 texts indicated above. The texts of the finalists are about the inner life of different dimensions. The screenwriter S.T., for example, writes about her feelings towards her sister in the face of a family conflict. Ben Frandesa writes about homelessness, the state of not having the protective inner life of one’s own dwelling. Of course, the Covid 19 theme also influences the artistic works. For example, the texts of sculptor Sarah Hillebrecht and writer Yvonne Struck are dedicated to the events and moods of the pandemic.
My text was about a famous church in Istanbul
There have been also submissions from Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary and China. But as the only finalist not living in Germany, my text deals with a rather political topic. Also, the inner emotional world is not assigned to a person, but to a building – another church.
In the meantime, the exhibition has ended and the tarpaulins have been taken down. Some of them will be auctioned on Facebook for a good cause until April 11, 2021. Even though I could not travel to Bremerhaven myself, I am still happy to have been part of this project. Incidentally, also vocally, because for the final service on March 14, almost all authors have recorded their texts, so that they were also heard in the church.
Here is a photo gallery of the exhibition Innenleben
The photos were kindly provided by the photographer Kai Martin Ulrich.
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