MAKING MEMORIES. THE DANGERS OF NOSTALGIA: INTERVIEW WITH HENRIKE NAUMANN

Strongly influenced by her upbringing in the former GDR, Henrike Naumann is
best known for creating large-scale installations using second-hand furniture. Invited to showcase her work at the Ivano-Frankivsk Drama Theater for the 2023 edition of the Kyiv Biennial, the show’s final outcome was different from her usual practice. A dialog about the differences between Eastern and Western perspectives, German and Ukrainian socialist legacies, and a toy rabbit from Naumann’s childhood that became
a soldier.

Henrike Naumann in a conversation with the Ukrainian curator, writer and editor Ivanna Kozachenko.

Ivanna
Is there something that you would name tasteless?

Henrike
No. Taste is interesting, because it divides people to a large extent. The same thing can be
found beautiful by someone but very ugly from another. The same person can also change
their relationship to a certain object over time. So something that you might find ugly could
come back in 10 years and evoke a strong emotion of beauty. Taste is always present, and
any object can evoke a reaction. I am interested in using objects that elicit strong emotional
responses to a particular design, and then connecting them to political convictions and
arguments that may be divisive and subjective.

Ivanna
Talking about divisive political arguments, we’re already not far anymore from discussing
war. How do you see doing art in the context of war? How would you reflect on its
effectiveness? What is the meaning of making art in wartime?

Henrike
I believe that art is important for our survival, especially in times of war. I am always
interested in understanding why it is so important, and why it is seen to have the power to
prove one’s existence. During my recent visit to Ukraine for the Kyiv Biennial, I questioned
the meaning of producing art in a country affected by war and what it means now to go to
Ukraine and to do a show there. This creates a sense of vulnerability, not only because of
the war but also because of my position and how I can contribute to this situation. Producing
an artwork felt like an extremely sensitive practice because I felt like I knew nothing. It is not
a matter of having a great idea and implementing it, but rather of considering the responses
and engagement of people in the context. Before coming to Ivano-Frankivsk, I researched
furniture stores and second-hand websites for materials to use in my installations. My
previous work involved installations with furniture and its aesthetics in large-scale
productions. However, I questioned whether it would be worthwhile to spend time carrying
furniture from A to B and then installing it. Instead, my goal was to respond to the situation
and produce a moment that we can all share and remember: It is not a tangible item or an
installation, but rather a memory. That’s why I decided to do the performance, even though
it’s not what I would normally do. The focus is not on material or installation, but rather on a
certain duration and narrative in the space. Finally I chose to work exclusively with male artists for the performance, considering that they are unable to leave the country. I was intrigued and haunted by the thought of artists, musicians, and actors potentially becoming soldiers. During the week, I had conversations with artists, actors, and musicians, and we eventually translated their experiences into the performance.

Ivanna
Besides working with the concept of masculinity and the role of the male artists in the war in
Ukraine, you also delved into the historical context and semantic load of the place where the
performance happened. The interior of the Ivano-Frankivsk Drama Theater emphasizes
Hutsul motifs. This was part of a consistent Soviet policy: to reduce all ideas about Ivano-
Frankivsk to the center of the Hutsul region. The impeccable craftsmanship of ceramists,
weavers, and woodworkers interrupts the brutalistic atmosphere of the theater’s interior.
However, all this rich decor only fills the architecture and has nothing to do with the
modernist architecture of the city. The combination of strict travertine, marble, granite, and
tinted metal with the details of Hutsul life seems artificial. I had the impression that during the
performance you attempted to deconstruct the space to then imagine it in a new way.

Henrike
I took some objects from Berlin with me when I was packing for the trip. The baseball bat is
a souvenir from a friend, a German-Ukrainian who’s currently working for the United Nations
as a war crime investigator. He’s traveling between Ukraine and Berlin every month and he’s
collecting objects he finds along the way and brought me this because he knows I like weird
things. The whole collection of objects is what I brought from Berlin when I still thought of
doing a large installation in the theater, but upon arriving, I realized that the architecture
would be the main focus. The curator recommended the space, which was atypical for
Ivano-Frankivsk. However, it worked well with my interest in Soviet modernist heritage and
its relevance to the war. As we carried out the performance during daytime, the performers
were able to see each other and interact with the audience, creating a shared experience.
The war mural inspired the performance, and I asked the actors to embody figures from the
mural’s artwork. I realized that the existing furniture of the space is actually the star of the
performance, and my job as an artist working with furniture is more to demonstrate that there
is already furniture and to think about how this furniture can be used in a way it hasn’t been
used before. During the performance, the actors improvised, building barricades with the
furniture like a throne out of old arm chairs from the inventory of the theater. Finally, also by
accident, one of the objects I brought from Berlin ended up on this throne: A tiny rabbit
plushie and black shoes with silver spikes. The rabbit has accompanied me since my
growing-up in socialist East Germany as well as the shoes in which the rabbit was finally
placed. The throne combined with the shoes and the rabbit became a visual representation
of art that just became a soldier or something very fragile that suddenly has to be strong – a
constant contradiction. For me, this rabbit also speaks about my own past in the former GDR
as well as my connection to Ukraine as I feel very close to the events happening in Eastern
Europe. My entire biography and my work is a negotiation between East and West: In
Germany, I’m from the East, while in Ukraine, I’m from the West. This constantly questions
the perspective I can adopt.

Ivanna
Speaking of Soviet heritage as a weapon, how do you use these remnants in your work, for
instance through involving your grandfather’s artworks? Has your perception of Soviet heritage and following aesthetics changed with your work in Ivano-Frankivsk?

Henrike
My fascination with Soviet architecture in Ukraine stems from its rarity in Germany today and
my emotional connection to it, as it reminds me of my childhood in the 1980s. I now
understand the violence it represents for many Ukrainians and the complex role it plays in
their history and traumas. I believe in preserving and contextualizing these remnants as
cultural heritage, in allowing them to speak about the past while also acknowledging their
problematic nature. In Germany, when discussing contested pasts and architectural
remnants, we often refer to those from the Third Reich. I believe that we should preserve
these remnants, but also provide context and ensure that the present is included in the
historical narrative. This allows us to remember and learn from the past while actively
keeping its memory alive. I believe in keeping painful history alive to prevent forgetting,
integrating it into a critical memory. In the future, I want to further investigate the idea that
my role as an artist is to engage in an active dialogue with these problematic histories. I
guess what I did in Ivano-Frankivsk was the first experiment of this kind.

Ivanna
My impression is that today, the aesthetics of the 1990s come back along with a desire to
reflect on what happened in this time, from the fall of the Iron Curtain to the change from
communism to capitalism. This new obsession with the 1990s goes hand in hand with the
fetishization and nostalgia of a period that is difficult to comprehend.

Henrike
That makes me think of the first edition of the Riga Biennial in 2018. I did a project, called
“Eurotique”, about the European renovation. The Soviet past was covered up during the
renovations in the 1990s and now it’s being brought to light again. In Germany, it was mostly
furniture being renovated, but in a post-Soviet context, everything, including the ceilings,
needed a “second skin” to enclose the past. 20 years later, the younger generation was
excited to remove this “second skin.” When I first started working with the furniture from the
1990s, everyone found it ugly and the things were just put on the street. Only 10 years ago, I
bought furniture on eBay for five euros or less. The ads were up for years, and then I would
pick the pieces up. But now it has become super competitive and expensive. I found a sit-
stand or lamps that nobody wanted years ago, and now they’re being sold for ridiculous
prices as vintage IKEA. I feel like my part in this process is done. I’m guilty of contributing to
it, but now I have to move on because my work is not about design fetish or expensive
furniture. It’s about what society throws away.

Ivanna
The Biennial in Riga in 2018 was entirely dedicated to the collapse of the Soviet Union and
the 1990s. I noticed that foreigners expected to see the leftovers of Soviet times. Especially
young people seem to have a nostalgia for something that they didn’t really experience and
indulge in this very dangerous political force. There is something about being afraid to look
at the future but rather find comfort in indefinite or uncertain aesthetics, even though these
years were extremely hard for people who lived through them.

Henrike

During this project for the Biennial, I was very focused on understanding that my idea of East
and West Germany is completely relative and doesn’t hold much meaning. My assumptions
about shared memories between East Germany and Latvia were incorrect. In a post-Soviet
context, the situation is much different from the post-socialist times in Germany and the
nostalgia around this time carries the potential for violence and the return of problematic
history. Further, I didn’t fully comprehend the implications at the time that the Biennial was
financed with Russian money. Some saw the arrival of international artists and productions
as a positive change, while others felt that the outside funding was a danger.

Ivanna
With the war on Ukraine, history indeed returned! I appreciated that you were raising your
voice towards supporting Ukraine, also with weapons. However, this is not a consensus in
Germany.

Henrike
In Germany, there is a prevailing belief that being a pacifist means Ukraine should surrender
to Russian aggression. This simplification and the fetishization of Russia has caused rifts
within East German families, particularly among the older generation who were socialized in
socialist times and speak Russian. There is a lack of understanding about the complexities
and struggles in Eastern Europe, particularly regarding why Ukraine resists Russian
influence. I want to challenge this perspective and make people understand and step out of
their comfort zones in thinking that being pacifist means ending conflicts at any cost, without
the use of weapons or fighting. However, this viewpoint fails to consider the Russian
aggression and their attempt to erase Ukrainian history. It goes against what pacifism truly
stands for.

Ivanna
How do you want to open that discussion? Which preconceived notions would you like to
tackle? How do you try to engage in and shape the German discourse with the means of
your artworks and practice in general?

Henrike
When looking at Ukraine’s history, Germany bears a big responsibility for a lot of pain and
suffering, going back to World War II. Timothy Snyder ‘s book Bloodlands or his fantastic
lecture series The Making of Modern Ukraine are what I would recommend to everyone in
Germany that wants to understand the deeper history between Germany and Ukraine. In
Germany, there is still an identification with Russia as the entity who “freed” Germany from
Nazism, while Ukrainians are labeled as “collaborators” and forgotten as victims. This leads
us straight to the recent past, the 1990s German politics under Gerhard Schröder, as well as
the Angela Merkel years and the appeasement policies towards Russia, with all the
economic dependencies that are still a fuel for Russia’s war on Ukraine. And then there is
the specific East German post-Socialist history, which is the context where I grew up, where
people from a generation above me have the tendency to identify with Russia as an
alternative to “Western hegemony”. This group of people is also a large part of the voter base for the far-right AfD. The Nazi-days, the socialist times, and the 1990s/2000s policies
towards Russia have left a big minefield in Germany in the form of a mixture of historical
ignorance towards anything that could be uncomfortable for the status quo. This is why I
dedicate my current practice by going to Ukraine and highlighting that the fate of Ukrainians
also depends on the Germans understanding their responsibility.