When We Were Exhaling Images

Documenta 14 visitors inspecting “living spaces” of a fictional pipe camp remembering a refugee's experience

The documenta 14 installation “When We Were Exhaling Images” was created by students of the Kunsthochschule Kassel in collaboration with Irak-born artist Hiwa K. The art object is composed of twenty clay pipes with a diameter of 2.95 feet (0.9 m), arranged in four vertically stacked layers of five. This work transforms Hiwa K's experience made in a refugee camp at the Greek port of Patras, where refugees were living in similar pipes. The pipe's interior design gives an impression of the narrow living spaces. The furniture and neatly arranged objects inside the pipes stand—my interpretation—for the refugee's dreams of a better life, which literally and unfortunately turned out as pipe dreams for some. The most interesting pipe may be the one filled with books: a pipe, occupied by a refugee, who was prepared to have enough to read until his expected change of status.

During the documenta 14 event, “When We Were Exhaling Images ” was exhibited near the permanent Frame Construction of documenta 6 at the upper end of the Gustav-Mahler Treppe, only a short walk away from The Parthenon of Books.