09.12.2025 - 12:00
“L’acte du nettoyage” (performance by Gianluca Monnier), Place des Nations, Genêve, Switzerland
A man alone, bent over the pavement: sponges like brushes. Dirt becomes color. Not cleaning—remembering.
From Hildesheim to Geneva, the colors change, the dirt remains.
Originating from Hildesheim, Germany, the site of one of the last Nazi massacres, L’Acte du Nettoyage (Der Akt der Reinigung) is rooted in the memory of places: the sponges gather dust, blood, and traces of what was, tracing a silent geography of pain on the canvases. In Geneva, the same act opens into a universal dimension: the colors change, but the dirt remains the same.
What remains when everything seems to have disappeared?
27.3.2025 - 15:00
“Der Akt der Reinigung” (performance by Gianluca Monnier), Martkplatz, Hildesheim, Germany, supported by Stadt Hildesheim und Friedrich Weinhagen Stiftung
26.4.2025 - 17:00 - Galerie im Sammelbuch-Speicher, 4. floor, Hildesheim, Germany
Exhibition on performance “Der Akt der Reinigung”, with a talk by Professor Martin Thumm, architectural historian, expert in reconstruction, Emeritus Professor at Hawk in Hildesheim.
On 22 March 1945, during the bombing that razed Hildesheim to the ground, at least 130 Italian military internees were accused of picking up burnt cans of food. They were hanged on the market square on 27 and 28 March.
Today, this square is a reconstruction, a scene that bears the past within it.
In this performance, the pavement is cleaned with gold and silver sponges, while the collected dirt drips onto white canvases and brings back a memory, a truth that cannot be erased.
Nordwind (art documentary film for cinema): the development phase of the project started with the support of Fondo Film Plus Svizzera italiana, Ticino Film Commission, RSI-Swiss television and Swiss federal bureau of culture.
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