CAPTURING MÜNNERSTADT, 2008 / Shadow cast on street – a site specific project / black paint on asphalt / 7 m x 20 m / Interviews / Video, 27 min, Mini DV, Loop / in collaboration with Regina Weiss

CAPTURING MÜNNERSTADT, 2008 / Shadow cast on street – a site specific project / black paint on asphalt / 7 m x 20 m / Interviews / Video, 27 min, Mini DV, Loop / in collaboration with Regina Weiss

CAPTURING MÜNNERSTADT, 2008 / Shadow cast on street – a site specific project / black paint on asphalt / 7 m x 20 m / Interviews / Video, 27 min, Mini DV, Loop / in collaboration with Regina Weiss

CAPTURING MÜNNERSTADT, 2008 / Shadow cast on street – a site specific project / black paint on asphalt / 7 m x 20 m / Interviews / Video, 27 min, Mini DV, Loop / in collaboration with Regina Weiss

CAPTURING MÜNNERSTADT, 2008 / Shadow cast on street – a site specific project / black paint on asphalt / 7 m x 20 m / Interviews / Video, 27 min, Mini DV, Loop / in collaboration with Regina Weiss

The work Capturing Münnerstadt developed from an invitation from the town Münnerstadt (Bay.) The starting point for the site specific project was the picture of a town gate from the Middle Ages that was destroyed and never rebuilt. At the end of the war in 1945 the Americans came to Münnerstadt and blew up the town gate because they could not drive with their armoured cars into the city. This place is today the main road into the city. During the one-week action the road was closed for traffic and the shadow of the former gate was transferred on a scale 1:1 with paint on to the road. The closing of the street produced an unlikely place for exchange, and the shadow cast stimulated conversations about memories of the end of the second world war in the city, which were documented in a 27 minute long video piece. The temporary intervention “capturing Münnerstadt“ makes the past visible without reconstructing the former gate. The cast shadow of the gate shows equally loss/destruction and change of the townscape. The “memory picture“ served to debate recent urban history. It developed an exchange over personal and collective handling of history and the visible traces in the townscape.