One Day Four Hours
Historical / Deutschland
A fire-damaged Officers’ Casino at a former East German military base (Deutsche Demokratische Republik / DDR) in Potsdam became the site for One Day Four Hours. The building, rumored to have been deliberately burned after Wiedervereinigung (reunification) to destroy property records, revealed a charred interior where material process could transform institutional erasure into visible record.
The title refers to the alleged destruction timeline and the narrow four-hour window when the site was accessible for viewing. Where documents were burned to erase institutional memory, the installation worked with materials—coal, copper wire, and decomposed paper—to record through physical process.
The installation was not an assemblage of materials, but a direct engagement with fragments of a historic period within a charged military and bureaucratic site of significance to the citizenry. The collection, discovery, and extraction of meaning were open-ended and exploratory, not filtered or predetermined. Each point of engagement—placement, erosion, and observation—was identified by material, context, and vulnerability, extracting significance without imposing conclusion. Together, these sixteen works coalesced into One Day Four Hours: a culmination of exposure to the remnants of history, informed by historical analysis yet ultimately embodied in the raw, poetic sensibility of the site and its time-worn matter.
Yet the installation is also oriented forward. While it engages with past erasure and bureaucratic memory, it is layered with a respect for continuity, renewal, and generational transformation. The site’s subsequent use as a kindergarten exemplifies this suspended time—history acknowledged, but not repeated; absorbed, then opened to new rhythms and possibilities. The work exists between past and future, inviting reflection on what endures, what transforms, and what may be inferred without attempting to replicate historical circumstances.
Pendulum
Suspended in the main hall, Pendulum transforms the ruin of political erasure into a slow, material clock. A conical galvanized–wire structure cradles dozens of lignite briquettes—the low–grade coal that once powered the DDR’s economy. Rainwater seeps through the porous fuel, dripping rhythmically onto an ashen disk below. Each drop carries trace minerals, staining the long-plank hardwood floor, registering disintegration.
In the Deutsche Demokratische Republik / DDR (German Democratic Republic / GDR), lignite was a material of survival and ideology. It sustained a nation cut off from the Ruhr’s hard coal but generated widespread environmental damage: deforested land, drained wetlands, poisoned rivers, and acid rain from sulfur dioxide emissions. Following reunification, the industry collapsed overnight. Within this building—once an officers’ casino—the suspended coal structure rhythmically drips humic acid and sulfated water steadily, marking time in dissolution.
Tug of War
Across the floor, hundreds of charred document binders form in opposition an interlocking east–west pattern. The burnt spines, emptied of their contents, create a fragile field of administrative remains—an archive undone by fire. Visitors move cautiously through the room, careful not to disturb the brittle arrangement.
Transition
Ouroboros
Lineage
Three copper–wire installations—Transition, Ouroboros, and Lineage—use oxidized wire laid directly on the herringbone floors. Transition creates fragmented linear patterns, Ouroboros forms a circle with a deliberate 100mm break, and Lineage arranges parallel lines in segmented sections. The copper’s green patina registers the chemical action of time, contrasting sharply with the surviving wood tones.
Ronda
A galvanized steel bathtub is mounted high beneath an open–roof section, collecting rainwater that forms a reflective pool. The manufacturer’s stamp—Ronda—remains visible along the rim, marking a trace of production left intact within the ruin.
Whisper
An angled glass tube, suspended by copper wire, channels ambient sound across the water–damaged wall. The placement captures the structure’s altered acoustics—rain, echoes, and shifting air currents.
Bureaucratic Muros
Damaged administrative documents and papers from the building are arranged throughout the space. Scorched and yellowed from fire, their brittle state and partial illegibility emphasize that the materials remain only as fragmented records.
Panel Circumspect
A limited–edition artist’s book created after the site’s demolition. Eleven copies were produced—one is held in the United States, with the others in Deutschland. Eleven photographs were hand–printed using specialized solutions and dyes, then mounted on heavy archival board. Eleven panels are bound within a burnt cover that mirrors the installation’s charred interior. The complete book functions as a reimagining of One Day Four Hours through material process and archival construction. ☐
Location: Schiffbauergasse (Kindertagesstätte Zauberstein) , Potsdam, Brandenburg, Deutschland
Presenter: Galerie Markus Richter, Potsdam
In-kind support: Sebastian Gäbel, Heidi Weiss, Jennifer Mann, Lea Yeager, L.E.G. Landeshauptstadt Potsdam
Printing: Elena Bouvier, SoJane Press
Industry: Arts and Culture—Installation and Public Art
LUCARNE 