pearls of pain
remembering. resting. reconciling.

Like a mental map, the recently completed artistic and socio-historical research on transgenerational trauma in Greece runs through the entire staircase connecting the floors of the exhibition. A delicate network, written in pencil on the uneven wall, consists of thematically structured text fragments, thoughts and questions. The title Pearls of Pain: remembering. resting. reconciling. reads like a condensed conceptual summary of this research. Right at the beginning of the wall piece is a quote from the philosopher Hannah Arendt:

"Pearl diving: fragments of thought from the living (or no longer living) that, when strung together, illuminate, explain and allow us to judge the present."

Wiederkehr deliberately placed this sentence at the beginning – as a central reference for understanding her own work: a mental string of pearls, a socio-philosophical cartography, a set of instructions on how transgenerational traumas, painful memories and the past can be renegotiated. This "archive" serves as a substrate for an emerging short film and performance project in which she searches for possible rituals of reconciliation.

For the final part of her research in Greece in the fall of 2024, Wiederkehr collaborated with renowned Athenian choreographer Androniki Marathaki. Marathaki's work explores the sensuality of pain and its relationship to the body and movement. Together with three performers and drawing on their specific family traumas, they sought the conditions for a possible process of reconciliation. Creating a supportive, solid space of trust, empathy, and witnessing were important aspects of this process. The insights gained served as the basis for the three workshops “pearls of pain: remembering, resting, reconciling.” Wiederkehr invited Marathaki back to examine, expand, and consolidate the experiences gathered in the cultural context of Switzerland.

This workshop took place after official opening hours in the safe environment of the Helmhaus. Using artistic, somatic, and dance practices, we focused on our bodies and our senses, feeling and questioning the conditions for the essential social space of trust between and among us. Under Androniki's guidance, we searched together in and with our bodies for the places where our pain was stored, defined them in order to examine their effects and potential in ourselves and our social environment.