Valerie-Malin Schmid

The Rites of Passage

Peering through tiny holes that beetles have chewed through a now-dead bark, a spruce monoculture in decline slowly reveals itself. Besides an ecological-economic history, it also carries a spiritual legacy: semicircles of oak poles aligned with the solstices bear witness to a prehistoric sun observatory, once used for supernatural rituals. Florian Fischer and Johannes Krell take us on a phantasmagorical journey that challenges human understanding of change and history with a geological and almost mythological perspective.