TEMPORARY MONUMENT

Concept I NS-Euthanasie I Victim List sorted by Name I Victim List sorted by municipality I Summery of the “Processes of Remembrance” I Recension in “Modern Austrian Literature” I Catalog

TEMPORARY MONUMENT – Acts of Remembrance is one of Wassermann´s most comprehensive art projects about National Socialism and the commemoration of its victims. Today there is knowledge about 360 patients of the psychiatric hospital in Hall in Tyrol who have been killed in course of the national socialistic euthanasia. Wassermann creates a living monument for them when initiating five artistic processes.

For process 1 – Giving Streets Names Wassermann tracks down the places of residence of the victims and asks the respective local government to name one street of the village or city after the victim.

(Excerpt TEMPORARY MONUMENT – Acts of Remembrance )

For process 2 – Park of Memory Wassermann manufactures plaques made of china with the names of the victims on them and places them in the bark of trees where the plaques will be overgrown over the years.

(Excerpt TEMPORARY MONUMENT – Acts of Remembrance )

For process 3 – Quilts – Blankets of Compassion the artist asks people to donate clothes which are sewed together and marked with the names of victims.

(Auszug TEMPORARY MONUMENT – Acts of Remembrance)

Process 4 -The Return is a performance in which Wassermann presents himself in the white cloak of a doctor and asks his audience to write the names of the victims on his cloak.

(Excerpt TEMPORARY MONUMENT – Acts of Remembrance )

The archive of the names of the victims reappears in process 5 – The Living Archive in which Wassermann collects personal objects and stories of and about the victims to create a dynamic archive which is in permanent state of flux.

(Excerpt TEMPORÄRES DENKMAL-Prozesse der Erinnerung)

photos: Hannes Schlosser, Manuela Waibl, Beate Eder-Jordan, Erika Schöpf, Martha Peer, Paul Sonnleitner, Theresia Ampferer, Franz Wassermann