The exhibition "Roads not Taken
Or: It Could Have Been Different"
is dedicated to 14 caesuras in German history,
namely of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Based on a concept by Professor Dan Diner,
we -the curatorial team- have staged
14 possibilities of German history,
always focusing strongly on one possibility
that has been historically laid out.
That doesn't always have to have been
the most probable possibility,
because there are, of course, usually several possibilities.
But we think that sharpening the eye
for the fundamental openness of history
is a vital point,
in order to understand history fundamentally better.
In order to grasp these spaces of possibility
in the best possible way,
you position yourself on the so-called View Points,
which allow an optimal view
onto the 14 spaces of possibility.
The exhibition goes backwards chronologically.
We start off in the year 1989 and end in the year 1848.
This is meant to represent an element of alienation
in the exhibition.
We have discovered that this element is actually
being received quite well by the visitors. They start
with a very familiar image, in this case 1989,
because you immediately feel like you are part of the exhibition.
But with this element of alienation, we also
want to pick up on the theme of the exhibition,
namely that it doesn't work teleologically
like a chronological narrative starting in the 19th century
and further and further moving towards the 20th century,
where everything inevitably merges into one another,
but the technique applied here is meant to
emphasize the openness of history.
And the individual turning points
also work on their own.
Meaning, each one is self-contained,
they do not build on each other in that sense.
The exhibition heavily utilizes quotations.
And it is through these quotations
you are being introduced to the “possibility-space”.
The exhibition is made in such a way
that there is always a “possibility-space”
and a “reality-space”,
the “possibility-space” is staged
to a large extent, colorfully designed, the images partially distorted
and just strongly staged in terms of design,
although we also work with original objects there.
The opposite is the “reality-space”.
Here, we also work with contemporary quotations,
but it is strictly museum-like, rather black and white,
with black lines, almost overly museal, showing
how the past history has gone.