Monopati Munich

Monopati Munich

A siamese twin art project in two different cities
2000
Berlin and München, Germany

"What might at first glance look like a crime-scene might perhaps actually be a place of worship and play…"   Iris Häussler

Upon entering the flat, visitors were immersed into a domestic scene disrupted, as if converted into a workshop focused on a single minded activity... and then, seemingly, abandoned.

In Munich, the visitor turned the key to open a cluttered apartment that had been transformed into a plaster workshop; piles of casts and molds of children's hands and feet were stacked against the walls, and encroached on the living space. Candy and little toys were found on the floor, next to the child-size chair; a bowl for mixing plaster was there, towels and rags. Wax had been melted in pots on the kitchen stove. Some of the molds had been used to make casts of the small  hands and feet.

(text continues after the gallery...)

Mise-en-scènes in two apartments were discovered simultaneously, - one in Berlin, the other in Munich. The legacies of two elderly women were discovered and opened to the public for the duration of the project. The key could be obtained at nearby galleries.

Both apartments had one single item in common: an old graduation photograph from a girls school. There is no indication of which school, city  or year it was taken. But from the style of clothing it would appear to be from the 1950’s. We are left to wonder: though 600 kilometers apart, that at some point, many years ago, might these two women have a shared biography? Were they in contact with each other? Or rather: did they lose contact many years ago? Were they “the twins' identifiable on the graduation-photograph? What motivation may be behind their activities? What do we not see? Not know?