THE MOMENT OF A MONUMENT

At the invitation of the Canton of Aargau's cultural education department, Lea Schaffner, video artist, and I moved our studios to the Baden Rütihof primary school in spring 2023.

What is time? Our shared interest gave us the impetus for this six-week residency. How can we think about philosophical topics such as memory, resistance or monuments with children aged between 5 and 12? The old chapel next to the school provided an introduction to the topic: due to a complete overhaul, the clock in the bell tower was removed along with the clock face - so time was no longer there. What does it mean to have no time? We explored timeless places performatively, explored slowness with our bodies, practised depicting living monuments and placed visual lines in places of remembrance. With the help of a video camera, we recorded these performative investigations - and incidentally created an archive of the past. The idea of the ephemeral, living monument emerged from these sketches. A huge sheet of paper with a surface area of 180m2 provided the aesthetic foundation. It took everyone's commitment to set this gigantic, fragile paper in motion. We used the resulting associative acoustics as a dramaturgical arc over the event: gentle stroking alternated with deafening noise as a climax, only to fall silent again immediately afterwards.

Rehearsing the performance in the present - focussing on the future final happening - which would later be stored as a collective memory - as a moment of the monument - was an intense experience for everyone involved.