Dachziegel, Backstein, Wasserrohr

In this work cycle, Susanne Kriemann connects to the culture of remembrance and the reappraisal of National Socialism from the climate-change driven perspective of the twenty-first century.

„Dachziegel, Backstein, Wasserrohr (gewidmet der Roten Waldameise, Strunkameise, Kerbameise)” (Roof tile, brick, water pipe [in conversation with Red forest ant, Notch ant, Stalk ant]; 2020) shows the decaying houses of former non-commissioned SS officers near the Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial.
The buildings date from the nineteen-thirties. The architecture bears witness to the banality of evil in National Socialist society. Damaged by weather and time, the buildings have stood abandoned since the nineteen-nineties. As these buildings are protected by German monument protection act, the buildings will have to be renovated at some point. What remains then of the many layers of time that manifest themselves in these houses that become forest?

Kriemann is interested in the aspect of slow violence that leaves its traumatic traces over the years. The concept of contamination here is to be understood as a symbolic burden, as is evident in this series of photographs. The artist transfers roof tiles, bricks, and water pipes collected on-site to the photographs by applying color pigments extracted from these recyclable materials. At the same time, Kriemann invited the forester Peter Linke, to join her search for habitats of rare ant species, as the Red Wood Ant, Narrow-headed Ant, and other wood ants, which are specially protected according to the Federal Ordinance on the Protection of Species (BArtSchV). They mapped 26 nests. This list then was submitted to the Oberhavel nature conservation authority. A different kind of destination for this area has been carved out, and these abandoned houses may remain material witnesses for years to come.

Traces and superimpositions of memory and a present marked by climate change converge; photography here is archive, memory, and material witness.”
(Sebastian Baden in “Mind Bombs”, catalogue to the exhibition at Kunsthalle Mannheim, 2021/2022)