Can there be room for hope in this place?
During my tenure as Artist in Residence at the Sachsenhausen Memorial, I created the landscape artwork LIFELINE.
LIFELINE is a 52-meter-long and 15-centimeter-wide strip of earth sown with wildflower seeds.
This line runs through an area enclosed in steel and filled with black stones, marking the outline of former prisoner barrack number 24 at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
With LIFELINE I wanted to invite visitors to reflect: Can and may new life arise in a place where so many people suffered, died and were killed? And how do we want to commemorate the people who suffered and died in this inhumane situation? Do we want to remember their deaths, or can we also remember the life that these people lived?
The wildflowers, diverse in shapes and colors like humanity itself, serve as a mirror of our society. Their recurring blooms symbolize strength and hope. They invite contemplation on whether there can be room for hope in such a place.
Throughout my two-and-a half-year residency, Together with grandchildren and relatives of concentration camp survivors, politicians, and refugees from, among other countries, Ukraine and Russia, I planted the seeds.
I engaged young international visitors, school groups, students, and politicians in a collective ritual of watering the LIFELINE. This ritual fostered profound conversations about memory, commemoration, and the current state of our world. It bridged the past and present through shared dialogue and reflection on the essential question:
Can there be room for hope in this place?
