THE BLOOMING HOUSE

In the windows of the Haus am Kleistpark, in Schöneberg Berlin, Susanne Wehr shows video projections as a filmic compilation only visible from the street. With this project, the artist indicates the connections between the diversity of nature and the diversity of cultural life. She also refers to the history of the Haus am Kleistpark as former botanical museum and its colonial references. The photographs of plants Susanne Wehr took in Cuba and Colombia are transformed into new levels of meaning by multiple exposures and filmic sequences. Outside and inside change sides in a spatial and metaphorical sense. Size ratios are removed from their original dimensions. Reality and fantasy blur into one another. The illuminated windows create the illusion of looking into a greenhouse where huge plants grow.
“Silent and, at first glance, infinitely slow, a solemn procession of images unfolds here behind three mighty arched windows, which at first seems completely enigmatic. Inside the house, to all appearances, gigantic treetops in the diameter of traffic roundabouts pass by the windows. This is followed by trunks rising out of the mist, so densely overgrown with pale parasites that they could be mistaken for ghosts in festive garb. A little later, huge blossoms grow behind the façade: they threaten to blow up the entire building and bring it down. Here, a plant cosmos, temporarily granted a metropolitan appearance, has gained the upper hand,” says Stefanos Pavlakis about his impressions of the project.

In her multifaceted work, Susanne Wehr deals throughout with the technically created image in the information age. In what ways do the machines of the digital age influence our perception and thus our sense of reality? In her latest site-specific works, she focuses on the representation of nature.

The project was supported by the Department of Art and Culture, Museums Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin with funds from the “Initiative Draussenstadt / BESD”