Witness

Witness is a site-specific project made for the Viehauktionshalle (Cattle Auction Hall) in Weimar, Germany.

The building was constructed in 1937 as a livestock auction hall. Its unusual lightweight wooden construction left the entire interior column free. The ground area is 35 × 70 meters and 25 meters high, with room for up to 3000 people. According to records it was, at the time, the largest building in Weimar with a light roof.

In 1942 the hall was put to another use. Jews from Thüringen and Sachsen were assembled here before being deported east, to the Bełżyce ghetto in Poland and from there to the Majdanek camp. After the war the Soviet army used the building for storage. From 1996 it served as a venue for concerts, exhibitions, festivals, theatre and company parties. It was later designated a historic landmark to preserve its history.

By 2014 the building sat sealed and in decay, its floor littered with broken glass and VHS tapes. It was forbidden to enter.

Three framed photographs lean against the wall and door outside. They are black and white Xerox copies, taken at the exact spots where they are placed, set into discarded window frames I found scattered around the building. I leaned them in position as if they were props waiting to be hung for a show. The largest photograph shows the steps leading up to the broken door, with an empty window frame leaning against it. It is the same frame, in the same position, that now displays this photograph. A photo of a photo, placed back into its original setting.

Witness was made for Illuminate the Darkness, a one-day exhibition held at the Viehauktionshalle on 11 July 2014 as part of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar Summaery. Twelve artists were each asked to respond to the building, its history and its present state. Because the building was sealed, everyone worked from the outside, engaging with it from a distance without entering or touching it. I took that constraint as the subject of my piece.

I spent several afternoons at the site doing my own investigation, collecting materials around the building and taking photographs. Alone there, I felt as if I were trespassing onto the site of a crime, always looking over my shoulder. I wanted to give viewers that same feeling, that they were seeing something forbidden, without the risk of actually trespassing.