Villa Wachholtz Film

On the occasion of her exhibition at the Gerisch Foundation in Neumünster, Sasportas aimed to explore the “soul” of Neumünster’s over 100-year-old exhibition building, Villa Wachholtz.

The architecture and its history serve as the starting point for her film Villa Wachholtz. The opening cross-fade of radiant light gradually peels away—like the moment of awakening from sleep—in a peculiarly ethereal animation, revealing the building stripped down to its inner structure. It rests on a foundation that extends endlessly into the depths, a foundation accessed solely by an equally endlessly extended flight of stairs.

But despite the building’s singularity, it doesn’t take long before vertical lines push their way down from above, like a seismogram: a constant pull into the depths, contrasting with the horizontal plane of the exhibition building’s floor. As one approaches the building, perception of it becomes more concrete; the nebulous white of the surrounding space gradually shifts into solid black.

At the same time, to explore the horizontal plane, concentric circular lines become visible, seemingly extending without limit into the surrounding space. Is the building the starting point and broadcaster of these wave lines? Or is it a materialized concentration of vibrations flowing through the room? Now the furnishings also become visible. While the almost-dissolved walls remain transparent, individual pictures, projections, and patterns of lines on the walls and floor offer resistance to the eye.

Yehudit Sasportas has integrated her entire exhibition Hasipur – The Story within the cinematic reconstruction of the Villa. Like a ghost for whom walls are no longer an obstacle, the viewer floats through the rooms—and there sees, within them, precisely the film Villa Wachholtz that guides them through the building.

The fictional camera work of the fully computer-animated film snakes along concentric circles through the rooms, causing the viewer to gradually lose touch with the ground, ultimately being pulled down into dizzying depths along the central seismographic rod. The seismographic needle, which appears to record the rapture of the deep—can it provide a scientifically secure footing?.

Under the acoustic influence of the increasing pulse, one bids farewell to the concrete exhibition and sinks into the deeper layers of the building, which finally dissolves in a white-veiled aureole, marking the start of the cyclical voyage of discovery all over again.