Slaughterhouse-Five, Messe Dresden
Memory wall and information light sculpture The artistically designed information light sculpture/memorial wall “Slaughterhouse Five” is visited every year by tourists from all over the world. In the basement of what was then the slaughterhouse, the American author Kurt Vonnegut – like his protagonist Billy Pilgrim – survived the Allied bombing raid on Dresden on February 13, 1945 as a prisoner of war. Using the multimedia literary sculpture, the viewer can experience the metamorphosis of the city of Dresden. Through the artful layering of drawings, paintings, photos and city map extracts, embedded in a complex grid made of wood and plexiglass, different time levels in the city’s history and at the same time the collage-like nature of the novel become visible. When lit from behind, the structure appears three-dimensional, with light and shadow becoming part of a larger image.
