documenta 15: Platz der Deutschen Einheit (Underpass), Rainer-Dierichs-Platz, Rondell, Sandershaus/Haferkakaofabrik and Trafohaus

In this venues: Trampoline House, Dan Perjovschi, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Taring Padi, Serigrafistas queer, Sa Sa Art Projects, Alice Yard, Arts Collaboratory

Exhibition title: documenta 15

Curated by: ruangrupa

Venue: documenta 15, Platz der Deutschen Einheit (Underpass), Rainer-Dierichs-Platz, Rondell, Sandershaus/Haferkakaofabrik, Trafohaus, Kassel, Germany

Date: June 18 – September 25, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and ©documenta 15

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kassel became the geographical center of the Federal Republic of Germany, and so it is only logical that the city should have a Square of German Unity (Platz der Deutschen Einheit). It is, however, not its most beautiful public square but rather an enormous, busy traffic circle—a relic of Kassel’s past as a “car-friendly city.”

For documenta fifteen, the activists from Denmark’s Trampoline House are using the pedestrian underpass on the south side of the square for the sound installation The Walls Have Ears by Sudanese Artist Khalid Albaih. The installation consists of hidden speakers placed in random locations along the tunnel, telling stories of asylum seekers in Denmark.

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When the Wilhelmshöhe train station opened in 1991, it overtook Kassel’s central station in importance. The central station is now largely used as an exhibition venue and cultural center. On its large plaza, named after publisher Rainer Dierichs, who died in 2007, the city erected the sculpture Man Walking to the Sky, which Jonathan Borofsky showed at documenta 9 in 1992.

With his work on Rainer-Dierichs-Platz, Dan Perjovschi alludes to his work Horizontal
Newspaper, on which he has been working since 2010 in his hometown of Sibiu, Romania. Belonging, community, and the future are themes that Perjovschi addresses time and again. Horizontal Newspaper is continually updated here during documenta fifteen.

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Firewalls are important today to protect the critical—digital—infrastructure of cities and countries. Once people needed defensive walls of thick stones to deter enemies. The Rondell, built in 1523 in Unterneustadt on the Fulda, was a defensive tower that formed part of the old fortifications of the city. Landgrave Friedrich II had the largest parts of it removed in the eighteenth century. The 15-meter-high domed space, with its nearly 10-meter-thick walls, can only be entered via a floating metal footbridge. Since the year 2000, there has been a beer garden in the Rondell; one room inside the Rondell serves as an exhibition space.

The Hanoi, Vietnam-based filmmaker and artist Nguyen Trinh Thi works with the multi-layered relationships between image, sound, and space. Her documenta fifteen project is based on an autobiographical novel that describes conditions in detention camps. The artist shows scenes in which prisoners go through the forest and harvest chilis to recall home; she combines sound images with memories, landscapes, and stories.

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Against the backdrop of an empty industrial factory and large vacant lots in the district of Bettenhausen, the Sandershaus opened in 2017 as the city’s first hostel. The Sandershaus is, however, more than that: it is a place for culture and the art of sustainable handiwork such as repair cafés, and the upcycling movement. The team shows its hospitality by operating not only a bar, a restaurant, and a hostel but also the Amal, a housing for refugees.

Serigrafistas queer have set up a rural meeting place outside of the Haferkakaofabrik that they use as a gathering space: in Argentina they make prints for LGBTTTIQ+. Also present are Sa Sa Art Projects, and Trampoline House, which furthers its ongoing work supporting refugees.

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What the Trafohaus (Transformer Station) on Lutherplatz once did is now done by a small box next to it: transforming electricity. The white building lies between districts; it has been used as a kiosk, a telephone booth, and a post office. Since the early 1990s, it has also hosted exhibitions.

For documenta fifteen the worldwide network Arts Collaboratory is also using the Trafohaus—as a newsroom, radio station, rooftop garden, and site of a theater performance.