Freedom and the City Installation at Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden
I was commissioned by the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden to create an alternative sculptural city map installation in collaboration with members of migrant communities in Dresden. Through two workshops, the community members shared their experiences and ideas about the safe and unsafe spaces in Dresden. Video clips of their stories and poems, as well as the word 'peace' in their language and hand, are incorporated into the installation. The work was made for the exhibition: Freedom: An Unfinished History
20 June 2025 - 31 May 2026
text about the exhibition:
Freedom today - a contested idea
While people in authoritarian states are fighting for their civil liberties today , democracies are debating what freedom actually means: Were the restrictions on individual civil liberties during the coronavirus pandemic justified? Is it permissible to dictate to citizens which heating systems or cars they are allowed to use in the name of climate protection? Does self-interest take precedence over the common good—or is it the other way around?
In these debates , the term "freedom" is used to represent completely opposing political goals. Thus, the demands of historical freedom movements are now also being used by right-wing populist groups, who simultaneously radically oppose a liberal society. To better understand this conflict, you can first look back in time : Starting with the revolutions since the 18th century, you will follow the unfinished history of freedom up to the civil rights activists in Poland, the Czech Republic, and East Germany before and after 1989. How did these freedom movements resemble and differ? What do their ideals still have to say to us today?
An exhibition by the German Hygiene Museum in cooperation with the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, the National Gallery in Prague and the National Museum in Wrocław.