probe

"Kunst bewegt Räume"
Kunstverein Gelsenkirchen e.V.
Gelsenkirchen. Germany
2012


The installation Probe marks five locations along the historic run of a creek, starting at the spring of the Börnchenbach in the natural reserve „Im deipen Gatt“ near the Ortbeck- and Stadtwaldt lake , leading to the former mouth of the Springbach into the river Emscher. The Börnchenbach flows into the Leither Mühlenbach, unifying with the Knabenbach, then called the Springbach, which shortly after disappears in an underground duct . That way the creek mutates into a cloaka which is a symbol for the situation in the Revier - the region of the former coal mines and steel industry, which today has to burden the long term effects and costs of the active mining . Only with substantial technical effort today these former. historic water bodies can be restored.
This ambivalence of technology and nature is the topic of the art work. Probe appears as a measuring instrument, which function remains unspecific. Is water extracted from the creek and river – is it tested, measured, or is substances added? Technology, nature and history form an interesting interface, which is made visible by the art work.







acrylic glass, stainless steel, water, pigment