CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK / Names in resistance

© 2018

For the performance CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK I spray a Hakenkreuz on the glass door through which one can enter the federal Tyrolean state house. As soon as the sprayed chalk is dried off the participants of the performance use their fingertips to write the names of the murdered resistance fighters into the Hakenkreuz thus erasing the symbol as a group. The more names are being written into the Hakenkreuz the more it is being fragmented till it is gone altogether. As the people living in the Tyrol participate actively in transferring the names onto the entrance door of the federal state house a living monument is being created. In the Commemorative Year 2018 in which Austria remembers the founding of the Republic Austria in 1918 but also the incorporation of Austria into National Socialist Germany in 1938 CRIMINAL OFFENCE CHALK / Names in resistance commemorates the sacrifice of the resistance fighters and asks how we want to deal with their heritage.

photos: Michaela Senn, Esther Strauß, Barbara Huber, Franz Wassermann