‘Hinterland’ in Post-Peace Exhibition at Wuttembergischen Kunstverein Stuttgart. Installation and performances

In this article you can read about the concept of “Hinterland” installation in “Post-Peace” exhibition at Wuttembergischen Kunstverein Stuttgart. In this post you can also see two related performances.

Concept of ‘Hinterland’ installation in Post-Peace exhibition:

“Stage for Tragedy” is originally the title of Alexandra Exter’s 1924 stage design drawing for a tragic scene in a film. It depicts a global labyrinth as a system of segregation and exclusion that causes disorientation, vertigo and fear at home or while trespassing national boarders. At the same time, Exter’s stage is a mental space governed by rigorous, yet fracturing, disciplines of how to behave and where to go. To translate the “Stage of Tragedy” to the contemporary, I appropriated the design of an ammunition box and used it as a basic element to construct the stage. The wood was sourced from second-hand pallets purchased in Stuttgart. The work alludes to the on-going free travel of goods and borderless exportation of death by the German and Western European weapon industries. The stage will function as a collaborative performance space that can be transformed into a variety of shapes according to the needs of each performance group

With special thanks to Andrés Novo assistance in deisgn and architectural adaptation.

Installation documentation:

List of Related Perforamces:

1. Performance ‘Building up the Hinterland’ Mid Jan- 24th Feb.:

A performative building up of ammunition boxes for the ‘Hinterland’ installation. I deconstruct Euro-pallets and transform it to boxes in style of ammunition boxe for duration of five weeks, more than nine hours of daily wolr with only one Sunday break.

Making of ‘Hinterland’ from Ehsan Fardjadniya on Vimeo.

Hinterland is a place between two lands
It isn’t the mainland, it isn’t my motherland

They say it is a port of fabrication, with no shine in its sand
You should leave from it, as far as you can

I want to reach, what they showed me as heartland
Not this euro-pallet and plastic, shantyland

Hinterland isn’t Netherland, Deutschland, Finland or Switzerland,
Nor is ausland in or outside the motherland
…
I got a new occupation in this new portland
I build ammunition boxes for the homeland
They say it wouldn’t be used in your fatherland
The money will go to art and culture on one hand
And some for sick baby grant, on the other hand

I don’t know, maybe it is for those who we strand
One day on this, not light but dark dark volcanic sand

Ehsan Fardjadniya
Stuttgart 2017

2. Performance ‘Where is Stammheim?’, 14th February:

Where is Stammheim (1)? Or where is Stamm Heim (2)? Where is home? Where is the prison? Where is exile? Are you home in exile? Can you feel home in prison? Can prison become home? Does a shelter, a place to refugee still exist? Where are the boarders of prison? How can you escape that prison? And where would you go after crossing the boarders of that prison? The last question reminds me of the moment when Truman touches the walls horizon in the end of the sea.

Related Article: ‘The Built Environment and Carcerality‘ by Egbert Alejandro Martina. Quote:

“Mi mama no tin plaka                            My mother doesn’t have any money
Hinka mi den un doshi                          Put me in a box
Manda mi na Hulanda                           (And) sent me to the Netherlands
Ora mi a yega Hulanda                          When I arrived in the Netherlands
An old Curaçaoan children’s song”

____

1. Stammheim is a maximum-security prison in Stuttgart, Baden Wuttemberg, Germany. An extra secure part was added to the jail to confine the Red Army Faction leaders as well as trial courthouse. The prison is where the “Dead Night” happened. A night when four leading members of Red Army Faction committed successful suicide, accept the fourth member Irmgard Möller who survived her suicide attempt. She stated that the deaths where no suicide but rather undertaken by the German government.
   2. Stamm means tripe and Heim means home in German. Although the combination of words in such order and with space in between is not used in German language.

Where is Stammheim? from Ehsan Fardjadniya on Vimeo.

Performance ‘Where is Stammheim?’ with work of Olaf Metzel in the garden of Wuttembergischen Kunstverein Stuttgart.

3. ‘I Must Seek Refuge Again‘, 24th February at the opening of ‘Post-Peace’ exhibition:

Ongoing performance during the opening of Post-Peace exhibition entitled: ‘I Must Seek Refuge Again‘. A durational performance in the close confinement of one boxes for time span of seven hours.
About:
The performance was not announce to the public but only communicated with few people so that it would become a secrete information or roamer.
The end of the performance happened by intervention of Anna Dasovic, one of the artist in the show. She repeatedly insisted that i should stop, end the performance and come out of the box. A that moment i thought actually this is a very sincere and humane request. During my performance i was actually thinking why no one comes to save me? In some snooze moments in the box i actually was dreaming that people at the opening and artists whom would know will come and save me out of the box. The longer it took the more disappointed i become about my possible saviours.

4. Performance ‘Ammunitionboxing’, 26th February:

‘Ammunitionboxing’ inspired by ‘Soapboxing’, which is a improvisational political talk in public space. This performance took place at Schlossplaz outisde the Wuttembergishe Kunstverein Stuttgart at the second conference day of Post-Peace exhibition. I invited the public to take a box from the installation and take it outside the white-box to the main square where i held my soapboxing speech

Soapboxing performance from Ehsan Fardjadniya on Vimeo.