New Pott

2010

100 Lichter / 100 Gesichter, a work that confronts the multicultural reality of the Ruhr metropolis. How can a region characterized by multiculturalism be represented artistically? Mischa Kuball opts for a participatory project. People and their families from all over the world who live in the Ruhr region today become active participants in his project. The artist gives them a lamp that illuminates their private space and transforms it into a stage, a platform on which the artist and the people from 100 different countries of origin meet. They tell him about their migration and life stories, about their experiences between cultures. The brightly lit floor lamps serve as symbols of encounter and exchange. Egbert Trogemann documented the encounters photographically and recorded them with a video camera. His recordings are incorporated into the artistic work. Mischa Kuball has created 100 tableaux with photographs of the participants and their interiors, which are in the tradition of comparative photography and can also be read as studies of the changing multicultural society. Multimedia documentation of the encounters makes it possible to follow the conversations between the artist and people from 100 different countries. The exhibition Mischa Kuball: NEW POTT. 100 Lichter/100 Gesichter, which will be on show from October 28, 2010 to April 30, 2011 in the art collections of the Ruhr University Bochum, in the Campus Museum, provides an insight into the large-scale artistic investigation. The project is presented here as an installation: Mischa Kuball shows lamp objects and 100 photographic tableaux as well as video recordings, which present the 100 encounters in different ways. The 100 conversations are the material for a polyphonic multimedia narrative about the Ruhr area, the 100 encounters create a new map of the Ruhr area, which, in the spirit of "Mapping the Region", surveys the Ruhr area anew. The catalog accompanying the exhibition: New Pott (ed. by Harald Welzer, Christoph Keller and Mischa Kuball) comments on the 100 transcribed conversations and thus offers extensive material for further research.

Photo: Egbert Trogemann

Exhibitions

  • Art Collections of the Ruhr University Bochum, 2011
  • Westenergie Tower, Essen, 2011-2012
  • Centrum Kultury Katovice, 2012
  • Conference GEMAK, The Hague, 2013
  • Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg, 2014
  • German House, New York, 2015-2016

Studio Mischa Kuball

Projects