Das Dialoghaus (The House of Dialogue)
Socially engaged Art
Waldeck, Germany
2017
In 2015, more than one million people fled their war torn countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan among others, to Europe, making this one of the largest mass migrations in post WWII history. Since then, Germany has received more than one million refugees.
In the summer of 2017, Marianne Sadowski, a Mexican-German artist based in Los Angeles, worked with refugees and German Families in Waldeck, Central Germany, where many refugees have found a new home.
The project consisted in creating channels of communication through art. Young and old, women, men and children all were invited to paint, print and embroider on old German linens, on which they shared their stories.
The linens were sewn together covering a traditional German Fachwerkhaus structure as a symbol of the place where we all want to live in peace together, creating the House of Dialogue or Dialoghaus.
For two weeks, children, adolescents and adults from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Slovakia, Greece, Armenia and Germany came together as a community, painting , printing and embroidering linens with their stories. Food and laughter was shared among all every day.
The canvases were finally attached to the house structure, covering it with words, images and stories.
The finished House of Dialogue was inaugurated in the town of Sachsenhausen in a ceremony of tea and cake. During the summer of 2017, it traveled to different towns in the State of Hessen for special community events. The House of Dialogue became to many a symbol of the effort and work of Germans and immigrants integrating and living together under the same roof of many stories.
This project was made possible with the generosity and support of Peter Dietrich and Kirche im Grünen, Familie Schaller, Familie Menkel, Frau Hildtrufd Deimel among many more.
My gratitude goes out to the many families that shared their stories.
