33 “moving” portraits as the longest work of art in northern Germany
#UNUEBERSEEBAR (combination of the German words for unmissable and overseas) is currently the longest curated artwork in Northern Germany. Mentalgassi, an artist collective from Hamburg and Berlin, has portrayed 33 people from HafenCity in collaboration with Hamburg’s Affenfaust Gallery and in cooperation with Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier. The photos were transferred to 3.44 x 2 meters elements and give viewers a moving experience thanks to a specially developed technique. The art installation stretches 385 meters around the construction site of Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier in HafenCity and will be freely accessible from May 6, 2022.
“HafenCity offers a lot of built space and still few opportunities to dock humanly. It is difficult to comprehend and grasp. What is the pull of this young district? What is the social cement? That’s what interested us. With ‘UNUEBERSEEBAR’ we are turning the people who already live and work in HafenCity into scouts who bring viewers closer to their district,” says Mentalgassi.
Managers like Lothar Schubert and Chairman of the Management Board such as Dr. Andreas Kleinau of HafenCity Hamburg GmbH, politicians like Arne Platzbecker and Jimmy Blum, gallery owners like Nisvican Roloff-Ok and Tom Stölting, residents: they are all united by their love of a young district, and they all shape the community and the development of the growing quarter on the Elbe.
“One of our core values is to network with, integrate and strengthen regional culture, society and business. In our strategy, we summarize this endeavor under the umbrella term ‘Better Communities’. We are always looking for ways to initiate projects and partnerships during the construction phase, and in the course of our exchanges with numerous personalities and institutions, Ellen Blumenstein from Imagine the City ultimately brought us together with Affenfaust Galerie. We are very happy about this exciting cooperation and especially about the finished artwork ‘UNUEBERSEEBAR’, which fits in such a unique way with our core idea for Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier, to bring people together at this special place”, says Karen Mester-Lichtsinn, Senior Marketing Manager of Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier.
Since construction sites will be part of the essence of HafenCity for some years to come, it was important to the artists not to hide them, but to integrate them into the installation. “Just as the face of the district is constantly changing, so too are the faces of those portrayed as they pass by,” says Marcus Schild of Affenfaust Galerie. The view that emerges of the construction site also reveals the people involved in building HafenCity, and the emergence of the extension of Hamburg’s city center can be followed. Very personal video messages from those portrayed and the making-of of the artwork on ueberseequartier.de/unueberseebar/ also make the project #UNUEBERSEEBAR on the web.
All images on this page Credit: @Catrin-Anja Eichinger
