2016 Installation
Oyster shells, clay, LED lights

Time travelling is an old dream of humankind; we know the subject from science fiction literature and films. The entry into parallel worlds or “back to the future” is usually made possible by means of a time machine, by magic or magical places.

For 10qm, Ute Hörner and Mathias Antlfinger developed the site-specific work “Site d’atterrissage pour les voyageurs dans le temps – Landing site for time travelers”. After more than four years of working on, around and on the asphalted area at the corner of Florastraße / Kuenstraße, its purpose is finally revealed: The prepared location serves as a landing pad for spacecraft. The arrivals are time travellers whose natural movement deviates from the usually directed course of time, indeed, they travel nonlinearly through time as if to different places and stop here and there.

These are not, however, technical flying objects borrowed from science fiction, but oyster shells. For thousands of years, oysters have served humans as food, as raw material for jewellery, especially for pearl cultivation, as a medium of exchange (shell money) in early culture, for the production of some medicines or even as a natural purifier of ponds. Oysters have existed for 250 million years, once grown they remain in one place.

The artist couple now not only gives the viewer the opportunity to imagine a potential journey with the help of the time capsules, but also offers the oysters the chance to get out on site and explore the area. How might the tranquil residential area by the park in Cologne-Nippes look from the oyster’s point of view?

Stefanie Klingemann