2008

Commissioned by Skulpturen Park Berlin_Zentrum. Curated by Matthias Einhoff, Philip Horst, Markus Lohmann, Harry Sachs and Daniel Sieple.

On August 26, 1978, Sigmund Jähn became the first German to fly into space. He flew on board Soyuz 31 to the Soviet space station Salyut 6, as a participant in the Interkosmos Space Program. Remarkable for the times, when both East and West Germany distinguished their heroes as clearly belonging to their respective states, Sigmund Jähn, of East Germany, was declared, somewhat presciently, as the ‘first German cosmonaut’.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the space flight, I renamed a section of Berlin’s Skulpturenpark, Sigmund Jähn Park, and set up the Sigmund Jähn Döner Kebab Stand for seven days, 20 hours, and 49 minutes - the duration of Sigmund Jähn’s flight. During business hours (noon-6pm daily), delicious Turkish döners were cut and served from the spinning spit.

Skulpturenpark, in Berlin Zentrum, is a large vacant lot left by the demolition of the Berlin Wall, which used to run through it. The wall’s route through the city is traced by two lines of cobble stones.

The project involved installing the döner wagon, a life-size sculpture of Sigmund Jähn, and a hand-painted billboard, which presented the Interkosmos Space Program and its internationalist and futuristic aspirations. A live feed surveillance camera, focused on the food stand from an adjacent building’s top floor, eerily transmitted the scene back to a black and white monitor at the van. A 23-minute radio jingle composed by Yotam Haber, in collaboration with me, played from a radio in the döner wagon.

The project intertwined conversations from the past with the present. On one hand, it addressed the question of articulating a national identity as it relates to the category of the ‘alien’. On the other, it focused on the role space programs play in the ‘nostalgia for the future’ experienced today. If the focus of the surveillance camera was any indication, it also celebrated the döner (invented in Berlin’s Kreuzberg), as well as the potential multicultural interface of post-division Germany – or is it post-German division?

Materials & Actions: Life-size sculpture of Sigmund Jähn, operating döner kebab stand, billboard, TV monitor, live broadcast.

Location: Berlin, Germany.