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June 1 – July 31, 2024

Inspired by the tradition of the Litfaßsäule, which is part of the cityscape since 1873, an advertising column in the city center of Bremen was transformed into a freely accessible gallery for two years. This project was initiated by Literaturhaus Bremen.

Julia Höft, Emilia Sting, and I were among the selected artists invited to create a motif that would be printed and displayed on the Litfaßsäule for two months. Rather than presenting a finished design, we chose to print a background resembling lined paper and use permanent markers to write on it—turning the installation into a performative intervention in public space.

This intervention was initially planned to take place a few days after our print was installed. However, by the time we arrived, passersby had already started engaging with the column, leaving behind their own thoughts and messages. Spontaneously, we decided to adapt our approach: instead of writing ourselves, we observed the organic conversations unfolding between the citizens of Bremen. We responded by adding words, questions, and comments, witnessing how the column gradually filled with more contributions each day.

The texts we discovered on the Litfaßsäule became starting points for our own collective writing sessions – a practice we had developed in our previous collaboration, Lesarten und Schreibweisen as well as in Begrenzt Grenzenlos.The project culminated in a public reading of these texts, which combined anonymous contributions from the column with our own reflections, as well as a writing workshop in public space.