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"Polen" Christoph Schäfer Both the increasing privatisation of the city and the reclaiming of public space are the central topics of the artist and director Christoph Schäfer. He focuses on communal projects and – as the co-initiator of “Park Fiction” – has created the Bürgerpark (People’s Park) on the banks of the river in St. Pauli, Hamburg. “Polen” shows the invisible hands that have been creating the modern investor architectures in Germany since the 1980s. “Polen” comprises a text and the photography of a wall into which the word “Polen” (Poland) is written. Polish workers have used slightly different stones and bricks in the wall, creating a monumental mosaic. With this, they have not only made themselves visible, but also the process which has been manifesting itself since the 1980s, and increasingly so since 1989, as it is especially since this period that seasonal workers and commuting migrants have been active on major construction sites throughout Germany. This by no means relates solely to workers from Poland, but also to German workers, who have been labouring on Amsterdam’s major underground railway construction site. However, the seasonal workers are barely visible within the cities they are helping to create, because – with their apartments and social relations in other countries – they do not truly participate in social life in their respective working venues. The “Polen” signature, however, highlights those partially responsible for the symbols of wealth, so important to western identification structures and the promise of a good life. Artist, born in 1964, lives and works in Hamburg. |
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