Mundus vult decipiI: Ergo decipiatur (performance), 2019 / Performance tour around different installations (fountains). In collaboration with Cristina Moreno García. Drawing: Kai Wimmers. Photos: Christian Lübbert
Working in collaboration with locals, we built five fountains that we placed around Arnis. We filled them with water from ‘Offa Quelle’, a spring that is located at the beach in Arnis (Baltic Sea) and is well-known because of its legendary healing water. Our fountains are inspired in Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer’s healing basin, made out of wood, tubes and ropes and containing metall powder and balanced water. Mesmer used to magnetise the water and bring his patients together around the basin, so that, spreading its water all over them, they would finally be cured collectively.
On the exhibition’s opening we offered a performative tour around the fountains. We concived it as a ceremony. We were wearing dresses that had been sewn and designed in collaboration with a local sailmaker: Elisabeth Lübbert. We also distributed copies of the drawing by Kai Wimmers, a local artist in Arnis. On the backside of the drawing we printed two texts: The legend of healing at Offa Quelle and a short explanation about our research on Mesmer.