Gniza is a video essay about the properties of books and at the same time the questions about the (im)possibility of its respectful disposal from a Jewish perspective. Books and libraries are recontextualised through ritual, material and narrative processes. In the process, questions of archiving and ownership become interwoven in a system of meanings and narratives. A transformation is set in motion: the books turn into relics and fossils, their pages into sedimentary layers. The work evolved in close collaboration with the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin while working with their archive. It was later presented at “Beyond Codex” at the New York Center for Book Arts in 2022. An extensive installation and a second video are being produced for “in Situ”, a group show at Kunsthalle Darmstadt about the legacy of fascist regimes, in late 2023.

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