Appearances of an exceptional situation

It’s the end of March 2020 in Berlin. Spring has already begun very gently, but the city has been vibrating in a muted panic for weeks. We have a pandemic.

We are united worldwide by the fear of coronavirus. I have rarely felt so united. The first lockdown, which should last 7 weeks, begins in Berlin. I’m almost relaxed about it.

I was already familiar with curfews from my travels, but they lasted a maximum of 10 days.

Being stuck in faraway countries because Indira Gandhi was assassinated (1984), or the towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed (2001), then the riots in Gujarat that kept me in Delhi for 7 days with my friends Geeta Kapur and Vivan Sunderam, or the attack on the most popular tourist mile in Bali, Kuta (2002)

This was something completely different. It was as if everyone was now holding their breath. The threat from humans was only indirect this time, via breathing, via the hostile aerosols – the terror of viruses.

The possibility of becoming infected everywhere, through neighbours, passers-by, the shop assistant.

There was a constant sense of unease and tension. The media, which I certainly followed more than ever before, showed me a continuous loop of worried talking heads, masked, contaminated people with strange-looking facial features.

At the same time, the variety of human faces in real time had dwindled to a minimum. Apart from the fact that most of them had their facial expressions reduced to a third by the mask and you found yourself in a faceless society.

The surreal situation, which forced me to rest, resulted in a reflexive download of faces.

Evening after evening, I sat in my kitchen, my attention focussed on my inner face archive, both hands in the clay. The creatures formed themselves, I could say later. Starting with the shape of the head, sometimes a dog meandered into a snake, only to reveal itself in a face I knew, which was then meticulously modelled to completion.

In fact, I never had any idea who would show up, let alone the intention that it would become a multi-year project that now comprises 108 small sculptures.

Doing Time – Doing Creature fishing !

In the absence of public life, the world outside, I modelled, gave the spirits and moods a head and created my own quarantine tribe.

The faces are an expression of different identities of independent living beings.

‘Sad sack’s’ are those that are obviously marked by an evil plague, others are covered by the mask, still others are stripped down to their fleshy tissue. Some are asleep, others have been dead for a long time, there are strange fantasy creatures and animals that naturally belong to the human figures. Then there are the self-convened friends and acquaintances – Ailyn, Paul, Björn, Mareille, Melitta, Franki, Nadia, Christian, Barbara and many more. All these different groups belong to a cloud of beings that appears to me and is constantly growing.

Over the last three years, I have brought those who want to be seen into being through sound. A disconcerting time that has shown me anew what is familiar and dear to me. I am related to this self-created community, even if it makes me anxious at times.