LAUFFEUER

The installation begins with a story about a kindergarten teacher

who loved to sing with her children:

For 27 years, she taught over 500 children the songs of her own childhood - with complete dedication. But when she retired, there were discussions about banning one of these songs. The discriminatory aspects of the lyrics were too obvious. The kindergarten teacher was not blamed - it was clear that this song came from a different time.

But to everyone's great surprise, the kindergarten teacher took legal action against the ban on the song. Word got around about this case.

Psychologists explained the kindergarten teacher's behavior with dissonance regression:

"Imagine if they had spent decades teaching the most important people in their lives something that now turns out to be a mistake?

All your passion went into these songs. Wouldn't that call their whole existence into question? We often find it easier to cope with denial than to question the actions of our whole life."

The artists wonder whether a similar story is currently taking place on our streets. People stand opposite each other, fighting for climate goals. Some are glued to the asphalt - others loathe it so much that they are toying with the idea of driving over it.

The press uses words like "civil war" and politicians speak of a new form of "terrorism".

A social divide is emerging. And as with the kindergarten teacher, no one understands how this has come about.

And so ordinary people face each other on the streets, their arguments turning into hatred.

The artists ask themselves whether we were pushed into the kindergarten teacher's position without knowing it:

"Here we are. We realize that we've been doing things for decades that are now turning out to be wrong. We flew to Ibiza for a weekend, had a debauched food culture and expanded our comfortable lives at the expense of nature. We are obviously complicit in climate change. BP used this very sentiment to divide society into two camps. And so we prefer to deny our own world. Our lives must not be called into question and all the people

who do so reap our concentrated aggression: "What do you know - we're one of the good guys!

we are one of the good guys!"

With this installation, the artists are creating an experiment that attempts to free the climate debate from the ballast of their own guilt in order to be able to think clearly again.

If we only ever think about our climate sins of the past, we will not lead the world into a positive future. It's time to free ourselves from the foggy state of guilt to make room for clarity and perspective. Write down all the guilt on this piece of paper. And destroy it!

Allow yourself to take a look at the state of our world without being overwhelmed by a guilty conscience.

be overcome by a guilty conscience.

In 14 days, over 10,000 sheets of paper were put through the shredder.