FINDLINGE – A search for traces in Grünheide (Brandenburg, Germany)
In Grünheide, geological, political, and ecological narratives intertwine to a story of suppression, silence, and resurfacing.Grünheide, formerly part of the GDR, has served as an economic hub for the region, both in the past and today. However, what makes Grünheide particularly intriguing is its role over the past 60 years as a site marked by political opacity. The deliberate destruction of files related to regional Stasi activities and the current obfuscation of industrially caused environmental damage through redacted documents in local politics and company boards, paint a picture of politically motivated concealment. To make this concealment visible, I draw on the image of the FINDLING (erratic boulder).
Today immovable, FINDLINGE, as erratic remnants of the last Ice Age, communicate past movements to the present day and serve as artifacts that encapsulate traces and remnants within their material presence. It is especially their context, of site-specific presence, combined with their materiality that enables them to speak even after 10,000 years of silence.
These FINDLINGE, constructed from shredded documents, are not any more results of geological processes but of human interventions, resurfacing the larger network of politics, history, and environmental damage in Grünheide, as traces of concealment.
