The Archeology of the Unseen
The Archeology of the Unseen, site-specific installation, first shown in Germany in the city of Wilhelmshaven, constitutes one of the core chapters of the Liquid Desert project. A black wall, detached from room no. 16, stands at the center of the installation, representing one of the Liquid Desert site rooms. The Archeology of the Unseen installation, which functions as an architectural branch of the actual desert site of the Liquid Desert project, was specifically formulated and adapted to the museum space and its architectural style.
Moreover, it maintains a historical correspondence with the particular character of the city of Wilhelmshaven and the specific point in history when the museum was erected. Wilhelmshaven, a city that carries in its urban space a series of significant bunkers such as: Bunker - Banter See / Bunker T 750 Hannoverkai / Bunker Arngaststraße.
In the framework of Sasportas’s work field, these bunkers function as architectural testimony sculptures of unusual scale. Their actual historical age entails the existence of storage, waiting and defense rooms, on one hand, while on the other hand their present existence comprises an empty and deserted void of impacted time and information, metaphorically frozen in time. As such, they maintain a timeless vigil in their urban surroundings. In this respect, the Archeology of the Unseen installation sparks an active link between the charged and hidden life material entombed within the visible bunker structures and the virtual underground latent rooms of the Liquid Desert structure.
At its core, the Liquid Desert site explores the anatomy of covert subconscious mental architecture, likened to an underground, silent black box that triggers movement within the various layers of the subconscious. It is identified with an upside-down bunker with several structural layers located in the Negev Desert, an area of historical relevance in southern Israel. The site functions as the home base for Sasportas’s complex sculptural/conceptual apparatus and as such, activates deserted and abandoned life material inherent in the collective subconscious – activity essential for life movement in its widest sense.
This type of sculptural apparatus is characteristic of many of Sasportas’s unique conceptual activities, which took place for years in different locations throughout Germany and other European countries. Among these were the sound recordings made in the swamps of northwestern Germany, the recordings of trees in the southern part of the Black Forest, the unique sound works with animals in varying states of consciousness and the activities of “listening” to historical buildings in urban environments. All these actions have served as the basis for her well-known drawing, sculpture, video and sound works.
Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, Wilhelmshaven, Germany
