The Disappearing Wall art installation that was due to take place from Thursday October 1 at Castlecourt Shopping Centre has been postponed due to Covid-19.
Further details to be announced soon
Northern Ireland will still join a number of European countries in hosting The Disappearing Wall, with organisers hoping to announce a new venue and revised dates soon for the interactive art installation that celebrates Europe’s diversity of languages and ideas.
Belfast will be the only city within the UK to host the installation which is based on an idea proposed by Maria Jablonina in a workshop carried out by the architect and engineer Werner Sobek and initiated by the Goethe-Institut.
Katharina von Ruckteschell-Katte, Director of the Goethe-Institut London, said: “Due to a tightening of COVID-19 restrictions, we have unfortunately had to postpone the visit of The Disappearing Wall to Belfast.
“We are still looking forward to welcoming the people of Belfast along to this phenomenal art installation and hope to announce a new date and change of venue soon – so keep your eyes peeled for further details!”
The Disappearing Wall consists of a plexiglas frame which will host 6,000 wooden blocks showing original and translated quotes collected by the Goethe-Institut earlier this year via local contests across Europe.
Visitors to the Wall are invited to take home a block which will contain one of a wide range of quotes, from the likes of Albert Einstein, Adorno, Rosa Luxemburg, Sartre and Jonas Mekas, to Beatles’ lyrics and lines from Winnie the Pooh or the film Amélie.
As more and more blocks are removed, the Wall will ‘disappear’ with only the clear Plexiglas grid that held them remaining.
Other cities to host the The Disappearing Wall include Antwerp, Barcelona, Brussels, Gdansk, The Hague, Madrid, Milan, Namur, Nicosia, Poznan, Segovia, Thessaloniki, Turin, Vilnius and Warsaw.
The Disappearing Wall is one of several projects that the Goethe-Institut is carrying out for Germany’s EU Council Presidency and as part of the Federal government’s cultural programme in Europe. With different topics and target groups, the projects are devoted to the overarching question of what will constitute Europe in future and how the European community and cohesion can be strengthened.
The Disappearing Wall is backed by the Federal Foreign Office with special funds for the German EU Council Presidency 2020. In Northern Ireland, the installation is supported by Catalyst Arts and Urban Scale Interventions.
More information on The Disappearing Wall can be found at www.goethe.de/disappearingwall.
