We are pleased to annouce the innauguration of Meinstein - a permanent public installation by Berlin based artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke, commissioned by the Borough of Neuoelln, Berlin. The inauguration takes place on 28th April 2014. Measuring 56m x 22m and costing 600,000 Euros to produce, Meinstein is now the largest public artwork in Berlin.
The installation, realised over the past three years, followed an open call for a vision of an urban project in Neukoell. Kaabi-Linke was awarded the First Prize and commissioned to produce the work. Working closely with the citizens from Neukoelln, together with a team of architects, Meinstein combines interactive art with programming and urban planning to reflect notions of immigration and resettlement.
Positioned in the southeastern part of Berlin, Neukoelln is an extremely ethnically diverse borough with the highest rate of immigration in the whole of Germany. Meinstein (which translates into 'my stone') is made up of a large mosaic of variously coloured natural stones assembled to form a pavement on Karl-Marx Street. Using public data and statistics of the city's citizens, each stone was imported specifically from the region of those citizen's origins. In importing these stones, Kaabi-Linke brought a part of each citizen's past to their new home. The dynamic pattern of the mosaic was then created by a computer program using the data from interviews and workshops with a select number of the borough's citizens exploring ideas of belonging and identity with the community as input data. Using this data the information was transcribed to develop a computer programme, which stimulated a dynamic pattern, based upon the people's responses.
Focusing on notions of memory, home and origins, Meinstein is a community art project that serves as a permanent visual reminder of the city's diverse ethnic make-up; a homage to its immigrant population as well as a symbolic embedding of their origins.
