Ein Fisch der auf dem Trockenen Schwimmt

This scenic installation follows the life and exile of Frankfurt-born Jewish illustrator and writer Erna Pinner (1890–1987). An international, interdisciplinary team translates her legacy into a living space of performance, music, video, and memory.

Visitors drift through key stations of Pinner’s journey: the realm of animals, oceans of misunderstanding, the quiet paths of adaptation and resilience. Visual fragments, original texts, and performative moments become a landscape to walk through — not to observe from outside, but to enter.

An artist forced to leave her homeland. A new country — cold, fog-bound, unfamiliar. Work as survival. Letters to the few friends who remained alive. Solitude turned into creative force. A deeper trust in animals than in people.

Never mind, everyone muddles through.

Texts from her books, letters to her beloved, photographs spanning a lifetime. A quiet place to read, to witness.

Her words abstracted, fused with voice and music. A musical rendition of Pinner’s own language. The texts were reworked by Syrian Artist Abdulaziz Khayyat, and were accompanied by a visual mapping of Erna Pinner’s drawings.

A sound healing journey through her Italy vacations. Nature sounds, acoustic instruments, tuning forks. A room for resting alongside her.

Cold, blue, foggy. An experimental performance on exile and alienation. The damp of an unfamiliar city.

A small performative installation of where she once was.

Abstract fragments of texts turned into light.