Herminengasse

Michaela Melian, Installation, Passage U2 Schottenring, Wien

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Herminengasse, 2017
Permanent installation, U-Bahn-Station Schottenring, Wien
Photo: KÖR Wien

Herminengasse, 2017
Permanent installation, U-Bahn-Station Schottenring, Wien

Michaela Melián dedicates her work Herminengasse at the northern exit of the Schottenring subway station to the Jewish victims of National Socialism who lived in the street of that name in Vienna’s 2nd district.
A research study made for the project established that, between 1938 and ’45, 800 Jewish men and women who permanently lived or were assigned temporary quarters in Herminengasse were eventually deported by the Nazis. Melián traces the fates of these individuals by drawing lines that lead from the residential houses in Herminengasse to the various concentration camps.

On the edge of the wall pictures, the concentration camps are listed not in geographical but in alphabetical order. The houses of Herminengasse are not realistically depicted, but rendered as bars in an information graph, which refer to the total number of 1322 Jewish people living in that street over those seven years. Underneath, there is a structure of gray lines that visually represent the railway network at the time.

On the way to the subway station exit, you literally pass through Herminengasse—with the left wall picture showing the houses on the left side, and the right picture those on the right side of the street.
On the basis of facts and data collected, a web of lines was created that visualizes subtly but clearly the commited injustice.

KÖR Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien und WIENER LINIEN