Föhrenwald, 2005
Slide projection with audioplay, version in German / version in English, 60 min
2 slide projectors, 160 slides, soundtrack, variable dimensions
Produced by: kunstraum muenchen, BR Hörspiel und Medienkunst, Kulturstiftung des Bundes
The model housing estate Föhrenwald built in the Upper Bavarian floodplains of the river Isar looks back on an eventful history. Between 1940 and 1945 it served as a camp for workers from the gunpowder and munitions factory in Geretsried; after World War II Föhrenwald became a transit camp for Jewish displaced persons, DPs, under US military supervision. From 1955 voluntary occupants moved into Föhrenwald for the first time, they were displaced families from Germany’s former eastern territories, who called themselves settlers.
Foehrenwald, a slide projection accompanied by an audioplay, shows the settlement in drawings using white lines against a black background. The voices in the play, whose words are based on the original accounts of former inhabitants, report on different phases in the life of the estate. The raw material for the music consists of fragments of classical music or simply the hissing and scratching of shellac records dating from 1931 to 1935, which were produced with the help of the Jewish cultural association Jüdischer Kulturbund.