ZWISCHENSTÄDTEN
Pauseland
Studio installation: Linus Grösel and Alan J Ward
From ‘Would Like to Meet’, Museum Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz Germany
25.11.25 – 25.01.26
‘Would Like to Meet’ is a strand of ‘The Questions’, part of the programme for Chemnitz 2025: European Capital of Culture by Quarantine, in conjunction with ASA-FF
We began our walk at HOME in Manchester, moving out of the city to look back at its expanding skyline. At the valley of the River Irk, we reached a threshold – an edge-land of green patches, wastelands, and disused factories where the urgency of the city meets the quiet of post-industrial decline. Here, a new perimeter of construction signals another cycle of redevelopment.
Above this shifting landscape, a 1960s concrete sculpture by William Mitchell watches from the brow of a hill. Depicting gears, machinery, and the workers who once powered them, it stands as a monument to an earlier industrial moment, observing renewal as it envelopes the remnants around it.
This site became a point of focus in our collaboration: a place where shared patterns of urban change, parallel material histories, and the overlooked spaces of Manchester and Chemnitz intersect.
This temporary studio presents a curated documentation of that ongoing exchange.
Further notes on the installation at Museum Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz
In Manchester, the focus of our discussion around our respective cities was very much based on a shared history, embedded in the landscape. I took Linus to sites in and around the Irk Valley. This resulted in the development of the video projection, which we developed further in Chemnitz.
In between the residencies, I worked on a scripted conversation across time between key historical protagonists; I printed a 3D maquette of the William Mitchell sculpture in conjunction with collaborator Jeffrey Knopf; and acquired a first-day cover from Chemnitz celebrating Karl-Marx-Stadt’s industrial and cultural history via eBay. I returned to the Irk Valley to make a series of field recordings, which Linus then layered into a new soundtrack for the video piece. He also made fever-dream-like paintings of the Manchester landscape.
In Linus’s home city of Chemnitz, our focus concentrated on artefacts that reflected shared histories. We explored second-hand and thrift shops, purchasing objects and ephemera that told stories of change and in-between places: a wooden candle holder that resembled Mitchell’s concrete sculpture from Collyhurst, Manchester; a Morrissey postcard to place inside a copy of my Manchester Man, that touched on the contemporary political landscapes of the artists’ respective cities; a cassette of early German New Wave music; an old East German passport; instructions for a lost train game; and photographic slides alongside black-and-white prints.
These elements filled vitrines or hung on the wall, while overlaid OHP-projected slides cascaded across the walls and ceiling. Analogue met digital, met print and paint, creating an in-between place — ZWISCHENSTÄDTEN.
Our thanks go to Quarantine for commissioning this encounter and conversation.
