The Waldram memorial bathhouse reflects contemporary history as if in a magnifying glass. The Föhrenwald camp, as the Wolfratshausen district used to be called, was initially a settlement for the workers in the nearby Nazi munitions factory. After the war, it functioned as a camp for displaced persons, i.e. Jewish Holocaust survivors, before eventually becoming a refuge for those who had been driven from their homeland. All of these layers unfold in the museum’s permanent exhibition. For this reason alone, Markus Heinsdorff’s “Light on for more humanity” is an excellent fit. Because this landscape installation also sets a sign against forgetting, draws attention to the precarious situation of the refugees before the borders of Europe.
From this Saturday evening (February 19), 36 orange lights will shine around the bathhouse. The lampshades are made from the fabric of used life jackets left on the beach, the only life insurance that refugees possess in the Mediterranean waves. And why every lamp shows signs of wear. The Munich artist originally created them for and in cooperation with the Schloss Blumenthal community. The cooperative has been managing the castle near Aichach with a hotel, inn and seminar facility for several years. There in the inner courtyard, the landscape installation had a particularly intense effect in spring 2021, 144 lights began to glow there in the twilight.
The erection of the 4.40 meter high steles involves a lot of volunteer work.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
After two months in the “who cares” exhibition at the Augsburg Textile Museum – where 37 lights were glowing – 36 examples will now be glowing around the bathhouse. The installation always involves a lot of voluntary work. Because the lamps are attached to 4.40 meter high steles, which first have to be anchored 70 centimeters deep in the ground. Digging holes that deep is no small feat. And of course cables have to be laid.
Fortunately, Heinsdorff has a lot of experience with such projects. In China and Indonesia he built houses with bamboo, which was considered inferior there, and used it to create the German-Chinese pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010. Wherever he works, he deals intensively with the respective national culture, uses traditional materials without forgoing high-tech possibilities. And works with the local people.
So also in Waldram. The 67-year-old Munich artist Heinsdorff is no stranger to the area, he grew up in neighboring Irschenhausen and went to school in Icking. Admittedly, he only just got to know the bathhouse. “I think it’s great and extremely committed,” he writes in an email. One more reason for him to show his work in the region.
Opening on Saturday, February 19, 6 p.m. (only with registration under 08171/ 2572502 or [email protected]). Duration of the exhibition until May 8th, www.erinnerungsort-badehaus.de