The Fate of the Shrine

Over the past two days we have torn down the show, said our goodbyes to many friends and a bittersweet void has filled the atelier. Of the twenty two pieces the four of us created, 10 were sold for cash, 5 were traded for meals or lodging at the infamous New Zealand Café, one was donated to the Grunburger community house and four pieces are staying for the international exhibit later this week. This left us with two pieces to distribute to the streets of Berlin. One was a shrine created by Dion made of broken windshield glass, rocks and other unsuitable things for children to play with – the other piece was a very heavy mirror collage created by Lilla which was too heavy for the hostel wall.
We scouted the neighbourhood for places to do two street installations and found a lovely tree pole for the mirror – fortunately close by and we hung it with ease. The shrine was harder to find a home for as it needed a flat surface and many of the power boxes and postal boxes that line the streets have a curved roof, which is possibly to prevent such things as this from taking place. After some perseverance we found one box with a flat roof at eye level and with a little ceremony left it on top. It looked beautiful in the sunlight and we all retreated to the café across the street to watch passer-by’s response to the piece while we had an iced Kaffee in the beautiful September afternoon.
Leo loved the idea of our art becoming a part of the street and promised to come by once per day on his way to coffee and take photos and sent them to us in Canada. This seemed like a perfect end to our crime and a way to stay involved.
But fate or theft intervened. Last night on our way to a party we walked by the shrine to see how it looked at night and to our surprise and delight it was gone. It survived less than four hours on the Berlin streets. So much for Leo’s photo essay.
Dion was terribly disappointed, but in my heart I know it was adopted by someone who found it attractive, broken glass and all and that it has gone to a good home, hopefully someone’s garden. But we will never know and that is how it should be.