The urban transformation process in the cities of the former GDR was for a long time framed as a process of shrinkage. Underlying this is a fundamental change from a socialist to a capitalist economy. Workplaces were lost, career paths disrupted, social contexts dissolved. At the same time, the peaceful end of the socialist regime was the beginning of a big utopian hope for a society which is more inclusive, democratic, fair and free.
In Halle Neustadt many Housing blocks of the Type P2 are being demolished. We collected doors from these demolished apartments. We can harvest three doors per apartment. Doors to bedroom, kids room and bathroom. They are all the same industrialized, standardized product. But after 40 years of use, they all carry signs of the people who lived with them for all this time. The availability of the door is a metaphor for the radical transfiguration of society and urban space and its effect to people’s lives. We re-contextualize these objects. We work on new imaginaries, a semantic reloading, a re-appropriation of the power-flow.