Where we there?

As in Once was now, Where we there? focussed on a reconstruction of no longer existing, semi-public interior spaces. Apart from the space itself we had a keen interest in the filters of memory: What is remembered and what has been forgotten? In how much detail can the (spatial) recollections be put in words? What is added or lost when materialised artistically? As opposed to our first work, however, we confined ourselves to a single place.

Eight contemporary witnesses described the pub „Zum Ännchen“ („Ohlert’s Ännchen“), formerly located on the main road of Burgbrohl, Germany, to us. Under this name, the pub existed from the 1950s to the early 60s but it continued to be known as “Das Ännchen” (“the Anny”) even after the name and the owners had changed later. Meanwhile the building that once hosted the Ännchen has been replaced by a residential house. To recreate the pub as a miniature, we conducted detailed interviews with former guests and modelled an ‘intersection’ after the (partially contradictory) reports. In November 2021 the project was presented at the Kunstpavillon Burgbrohl. The miniature scaled 1:12 was one part of an installation. Its interior was also photographed from various angles to project black-and-white images onto the gallery wall so that it appeared approximately lifesize. As a third component, excerpts of our interviews where presented as a half hour audio loop.