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28 April 2024
Fashion.at on Chiharu Shiota's installation 'Where Are We Now?' Why did the artist present women's clothing in a tunnel where male concentration camp inmates were forced to build stone halls for their tormentors?
To attend the press preview of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut exhibition 'Where Are We Now' by Chiharu Shiota in the memorial tunnel of Ebensee, a subcamp of the Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen in Upper Austria, Fashion.at took the train from Vienna directly to Ebensee station. Unfortunately, it was the wrong station, because - who would believe it - the town has another station with a similar name, but with the extension Landungsplatz. Landungsplatz was not the name of the shuttle service station and not another name for a parking lot. It was definitely 'Landungsplatz'. The word refers to a place that historically served as a landing place for boats and ships that brought goods or passengers to this port on the Traunsee.
Well, another association in context with the art event could also have been the transport of prisoners to the concentration camp in Ebensee. The history of the Ebensee region, especially the years under the Nazi regime when many people were murdered in the camps, is the main theme of this year's art exhibitions and initiatives. In this article, Fashion.at reports on the Chiharu Shiota exhibition and a bicycle tour on the tracks of resistance fighters.
In both cases, women play a central role. In Chiharu Shiota's installation of 25 dresses in a tunnel, part of a more than 7.6-kilometer system of tunnels dug by male prisoners, who were politically persecuted and undesirable to the Nazi regime, under inhumane conditions that in many cases led to death, the question arises as to why the artist used women's clothing to commemorate the pain of these men - poorly fed and dressed too lightly for the around 8-degree temperatures in the tunnels they built for their tormentors to store, research and develop military weapons (source: https://www.memorial-ebensee.at/index.php/en/history). "Why women's clothing?" was one of the questions that came from the audience of journalists and reporters from different countries who listened to the introduction of Elisabeth Schweeger, Artistic Director of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl - Salzkammergut 2024, who recited the poem 'A Body Was Given to Me' by Ossip Mandelstam, which inspired the director to ask Shiota for an installation in the tunnel, Wolfgang Quatember, director of the Concentration Camp Memorial and Museum of Contemporary History in Ebensee, and Chiharu Shiota.
The artist explained that women played a crucial role in those years, secretly delivering bread to the prisoners at the risk of losing their own lives. The clothes seem to be connected. Like a network from one woman to another. Most of the dresses are blood red. The few white ones, which look like bridal gowns, reinforce the impression of the blood-soaked textiles and the strong bond between the women and the men, who in most cases had no chance of survival. This "Presence in Absence" is central to Shiota's work. Fashion.at walked along the installation to the end of the memorial tunnel; from selected perspectives, the trains of the dresses appear to be reminders of the Austrian flag - red-white-red.
Fashion.at left the press group. Instead of taking a shuttle to the next preview destination, the individual exploration of the region began here - by train.
The article will be continued: On the tracks of resistance fighters.
Images, from left: Elisabeth Schweeger, Artistic Director of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl - Salzkammergut 2024, artist Chiharu Shiota and Wolfgang Quatember, Director of the Concentration Camp Memorial and Museum of Contemporary History in Ebensee on April 26, 2024 at the press preview of the exhibition 'Where Are We Now?' at the KZ-Gedenkstollen Ebensee in Upper Austria. Right: View of a part of the installation by Chiharu Shiota.
Chiharu Shiota's exhibition 'Where Are We Now?' will be on view until September 30, 2024; details are published on https://www.salzkammergut-2024.at/en/projekte/chiharu-shiota-2/.
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