‘Krankheit als Metapher. Das Irre im Garten der Arten’ was an international exhibition project organised by curator Britta Peters in 2014 with eleven artists at various locations in Hamburg: from the Kunsthaus Hamburg to the Museum of Medical History, a café and in public spaces. The artistic works addressed different facets of society’s approach to illness.

As part of the project, the sound work ‘Andante Calmo’ by artist, musician and HFBK professor Michaela Melián was created as a kind of immaterial sculpture. The piece was exhibited as a sound installation in various productions at the Kunsthaus Hamburg, performed with singers at Kampnagel Theater Hamburg and could also be accessed via a QR code in the city centre.

The source material for ‘Andante Calmo’ is an aria from Giacomo Puccini’s opera ‘La Bohème’, first performed in 1896, which is dedicated to the lives of young Parisian bohemians at the turn of the century and whose protagonist Mimì falls ill with tuberculosis and dies. At the time, the disease was associated with an exaggerated sensitivity that was typical of artists.

Melián modernises the piece by composing a new soundtrack based on the role of Mimì. She combines various contemporary sounds to create a melancholy, fragile collage. A choir of three young female singers takes on the role of Mimì, whose image as a woman oscillates between weakness and libido.

You can still listen to the sound work and turn the city into a listening room – simply scan the QR code wherever you are strolling.

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