Song For Gretchen

Stereo installation for 2 mono speakers in 2 birdhouses. “Song for Gretchen” was created within the frame of the Frankfurt “Osterspaziergang”. Contrary to the wide reception of Goethe’s famous “Easterwalk” poem, the attention is directed towards the biography of Susanna Margareta Brandt who was sentenced to death under the accusation of murdering her child.

The 16th of April 2018 found Faust’s poor Gretchen singing in the garden of the Willemer Häuschen in Frankfurt/Main: On occasion of Easter celebrations and Goethe’s famous “Easter Walk” poem the curators Annette Gloser and Robert Bock invited 11 artists to create art works along a historical parcours of Frankfurt’s Goethian landmarks. In an adaption of the old German kitchen song „Mariechen saß weinend im Garten“ Shanti Suki Osman’s and Ulrike Stoehring’s voices sounded out into the place where Goethe met Marianne von Willemer in 1814.