The German Dream

Ütopien aus den Reihenhäusern

The German Dream - an ethnological inquiry into the desires, rituals, and dreams of a community in which today many members are searching for alternatives for Germany. Along with the various utopias, the great and small dreams of the future, the exhibition presents the initial results of a research trip through the material testimonies, idiosyncrasies and imaginary worlds of the "German" community, often forgotten in ethnological museums.

  • DATES 17/05/2019—11/08/2019

[Translate to English:] Die Ausstellung

Para International, a Berlin-based artists' collective, will conduct archaeological research in the exhibition to find the future that does not yet exist, Leipzig artists Wilhelm Frederking and Heidi Baudrich will take part in a speculative alternative worl. Enigmatic everyday objects are investigated ethnologically in the photographic documentaries of the photographers Christian Werner and Philipp Meuser, and entire places that have now disappeared – such as the traditional Leipzig pub "Weißes Ross" – deal with the question of the disappearance of "the Germans.”

[Translate to English:] Ausstellung

The new poets and thinkers of the Internet age, LuksanWunder and Willy Nachdenklich, present a dramatic change in language. In the "German Forest," new customs are being preserved and developed, such as the immaterial German cultural heritage of the masked custom of the Spergau Candlemas or the Saxon Muldegeister (Mulde River spirits). The dark aspects of German history are located in a cave in the forest: as a cave or black box of repressed memory, as a cabinet of curiosities between nightmare, terror and black romanticism. No other German band is better able to present this feeling and the play with their own partly dark history than Rammstein, who are featured in the exhibition with the controversial music video "Deutschland."

Participating artists and entrepreneurs:

Para International (Berlin artists collective)

Heidi Baudrich (artist from Leipzig)

Wilhelm Frederking (artist from Leipzig)

Christian Werner, Sven Stolzenwald, David C. Hansen (photographers from Leipzig)

Philipp Meuser, Kolja Warnecke (photographers from Hamburg)


More lenders:

Muldegeister (mask custom from Doberschütz/Saxony)

Spergau Candlemast (mask custom from Spergau/Saxony-Anhalt)

Gartenzwergmanufaktur Philipp Griebel (oldest garden gnome manufactory in Gräfenroda/Thuringia)

Museum of Saxon Folk Art, Dresden State Art Collections

Archive of the Avant-garde, Dresden State Art Collections


Additional loans/media:

Universal Music Publishing GmbH - Music video of the band Rammstein - Germany

ZDF - Richtung 2000 – Vorschau auf die Welt von morgen ("Towards 2000 – A preview of tomorrow's world"), a film by Arno Schmuckler and Peter Kerstan

WunderTütenFabrik, YouTube clips: "Correct pronunciation" (satire collective from Berlin)

Willy Nachdenklich, creator of the Facebook page Nachdenklich Sprüche mit Bildern ("Nachdenklich Sayings with Pictures")

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