Get-Out // SQUATFABRIK #1

In 2020, in the middle of the worldwide pandemic, the team at Kulturfabrik was more determined than ever to support the local art scene and the result was Squatfabrik: a programme of short artist residencies. Due to the project’s great success, it has become a permanent fixture in Kufa’s calendar and is back for a fourth time since 2 May 2023. Between May and November 2023, four artist duos will be in residence at Kufa (with always one local and one foreign artist).

After a whole month at the Squatfabrik, the artists Justine Blau (LU) and John Herman (DE) invite you to their Get-Out, Thursday 25th May, from 6 to 10 pm. You will be able to discover the artistic universe of the two artists.

Justine Blau will present, among other things, the installation "Depression Garden".

Miniature salt crystal gardens became popular during the Great Depression as decorative elements, and are still commonly known as "Depression Flowers", "Poor Man's Flowers" or "Coal Gardens". The salt crystals grow slowly in their chemical mixture of bleach and ammonia. The installation "Depression Garden" represents a garden of depression, a stripped miniature nature, made of clay balls, slag, salt crystals and confetti. Anthropic landscape, abandoned by a carnivalesque parade with the appearance of a ruin or a feral nature in mutation.

Justine Blau will also show a small exploration around the soap bubble as an ephemeral entity in the face of the spirit of conservation, as well as traces of the performance "FERAL" realized with Morgane Britscher, Nora Wagner, Brice Montagne and Marie-Anne Lorgé during the open market of Esch-sur-Alzette.

John Herman will present a performance called "SLAUGHTERHOUSE" > from 8 to 9pm (Not recommended for people under 18)

According to Clausewitz, wars are a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means. It remains to be seen whether this also applies to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. What is certain is that a war of attrition is developing at the edge of Europe, in which multiple states represent interests that only partially overlap those of the Ukrainian people. The destructive potential of the current war revives memories of the horrors of two world wars of the last century, which turned Europe into a slaughterhouse.

The current war, however, is not only directed against Ukraine, but has spurred profound political and economic upheavals on a global scale that are having a direct impact on the livelihoods of billions of people. Accelerating climate change, rapidly increasing global economic turmoil, and the threat of famine in the global South show that war as a slaughterhouse is far from obsolete.

In his installation/performance SLAUGHTERHOUSE, John Herman examines the rampant individual powerlessness and resignation accompanying the profound political and economic upheavals in the wake of the ongoing war to display them through performative, auditory, and visual means. Taking place in a former slaughterhouse, the performance can also be seen as an allegory of life, in which focus is placed on the desire for individual redemption.