Sinkages

A project by Alexander Jöchl and Sabrina Kern
Ebensee, 2010 - 2013

All current information can be found here.

From 2011 onwards, 191 river stones bearing the author/book title/subtitle/place of publication/year of publication will be placed loosely distributed at the Traun estuary/Lake Traun and water/land interface on September 22nd over a period of 3 years. This day represents the traditional date of 1934, when the first attempt to sink books in the Traun took place.

INTERVENTION
on 22.09.2011, at 17.00
Traun estuary, Ebensee

Wegbeschreibung Versenkungen

Project description

Starting point:
In March 1934, the Federal Ministry of Education instructed Adalbert Depiny, head of education, to take action against the Social Democratic educational institutions. In the course of this, a total of 800 books from the Ebensee "Workers' Library" were sunk in the Traunsee (exact date unknown), the deepest lake in Austria (191 meters), in agreement with the gendarmerie. This was preceded by an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the books in the Traun during the night from 22.09 to 23.09. According to reports, "getting rid of superfluous items" in the Traun or Traunsee is a "local tradition" that has been used several times in the area. It is now difficult to reconstruct exactly which books fell victim to the destruction. There is no complete list of the books that were destroyed, only 9 names of authors have been handed down in a leaflet from the Ebensee Communist Party. In addition, discrepancies about the extent and "thoroughness of the implementation" of the action among the institutions and individuals involved can be documented by other documents.

The sinking project

• recalls the historical event of the book sinking in Ebensee
• stimulates reflection on where and how fascist structures and history(ies) are still being perpetuated today and how criticism and debate about them are still marginalized
• also includes the thematization of the impossibility of a closed, static memorial site that functions for itself

Photos in print quality as jpg:
Photo 01 - Photo credit: Alexander Jöchl
Photo 02 - Photo credit: Sabrina Kern

Photo credit: Alexander Jöchl

Photo credit: Sabrina Kern


Press
Announcement in:

an.schläge
the feminist monthly magazine
september 2011
Category: an.riss kultur

Article on:

nachrichten.at
15. September 2011
Category: Upper Austria > Salzkammergut

Article in:

Kurier
Monday, September 19, 2011
Category: Where to
Page 23

Tips Gmunden
Wed September 21, 2011, week 38
Page 6

ÖH Courier No. 5
Mon November 07, 2011, week 45
Category: ÖH Department for Social Policy
Page 6

Radio contributions:

KUPF Radio
Tue December 20, 2011

ARGE lustfully evil

Under the title "lustfully evil", performative interventions took place in public spaces throughout Upper Austria from 2009 to 2011. The focus of the working group initiated by FIFTITU% was to track down situations in order to make patriarchal-white-heteronormative structures visible, to empower them and to reinterpret them. Successful pranks and tricks of a poetic and resistant nature were the
results Results

A project by FIFTITU% as part of the Kupf Innovationstopf 2009.

Catalog presentation
When: 06.04.2011, 19:00
Where: KAPU, 1st floor, Kapuzinerstr. 36, 4020 Linz

Catalog ARGE lustvoll böse as pdf: Versenkungen page 23

Contribution on dorf tv/ FIFTV 5
Link to the program: http://dorftv.at/videos/fiftv/1286

Contribution on Radio FRO/ 52radiominuten
Link to the broadcast: http://cba.fro.at/45160

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Partly financed as part of the "ARGE lustvoll böse", a project by FIFTITU% as part of the Kupf Innovationstopf 2009
Supported by: Frauenforum Salzkammergut, Zeitgeschichte Museum Ebensee