Perpetual Metamorphosis
Ruth Sergel
An interactive cabinet of wonders created from the collections of the University of Hamburg
See … Panofsky’s Mirror
Touch … Objects of Knowledge
Listen … Lunascope
Move … You are everything you need
Artist Statement
A university is a place of becoming. The collections reveal our constant attempt at understanding; a plant in the Botanical garden is represented in a period painting, captured in a glass plate negative, dried and pressed, inspected by microscope, 3D scanned. The same object, but multiple ways of knowing it.
What are we trying to discover?
Immerwährende Verwandlung is not a choronological account of 100 years but a story of the work of becoming. Through action – see, touch, listen, move – we explore possible selves. Nothing is permanent. We can be kind one moment, terrible the next. It is the work of our lives. The university provides a home for us to be as passionate and intelligent as we actually are. To revel in the risk and exhiliration of that exploration.
For more on Ruth’s work please visit: www.streetpictures.org