City Fragments. - Textbote

A Sound Installation in Gröditz.

How does a stranger approach an unknown city? She goes for a walk – alone and with people who live there. She visits places where people come together, work and spend their time. She listens. She records. She collects. She reassembles. And she creates a walk-in labyrinth from the collected sound fragments. She invites you to take a seat, sit back and listen – to the youth of Gröditz, the choir, the senior citizens and many other voices, all of whom have their own unique perspective on their city. In the interplay of found objects, images of the town (video: Robert Arnold) and sounds, the multi-channel installation allows visitors to discover the town of Gröditz from the perspective of an artist unfamiliar with the place and experience the familiar in a new way.

Between four listening stations with headphones, a walk-in black box with a 4-channel composition, a babble of voices coming from bales of straw and a ghostly floating black hoodie, facets of the city can be heard. Its past and present. Its elders and youngsters. Its steelworks and its hairdressing salon. Its youth club and its choir. In-between, deeply engraved experiences – from the people of Gröditz and from the artist. And the retired town chronicler can also be heard.

The installation was commissioned as part of the Dresden State Art Collections’ project “The Future in the Rear Mirror”. Inspired by Paul Namyslik’s chronicle, which was completed in 2021, the Outreach and Society department invited visitors to rediscover their own city in an exhibition with a sound performance and three readings as part of the Gröditzer Christmas Market from 1st to 3rd December 2023. Parallel to the Christmas market, past, present and future stories of the town were brought to life, postcards with greetings from Gröditz were sent and memories were shared.