2019, series of 5, digital collage of 108 archival pigment prints
and text, each 255 x 125 cm, framed. Exhibition view: KLEMM'S and Kunstmuseum Magdeburg
As I drove at night through wintery East Germany—which in the early 1990s had experienced the most violent and rapid economic and industrial change in European post-war history—I often had to think of a silly home video that my father had shown me in the mid-1990s.
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He and his colleagues, who had likewise become unemployed, had raised a domestic pig in their newly won free time. The animal was christened "Wessi" (slang for West-German person). In the video, the animal is first chased across the yard by a raucous group of East German ex-proletarians. The pig squeals heartbreakingly. It probably suspects what is about to happen. Then, with much effort, somebody sticks a cattle stun gun between Wessi’s eyes and pulls the trigger. The pig falls with a thud. Then the stunned animal's carotid artery is severed. A dark red fountain shoots out. My father throws himself on the now twitching pig. In his arms, Wessi bleeds out completely.
On my journey through the East German hinterland it became colder and colder. Snowfall set in and I drove home. I asked my father about the video, but he had deleted it long ago. Sven Johne, 2019 less
