Sturzlage

On the occasion of Berlin Freedom Week, the installation „Sturzlage“ at the Humboldt Forum is dedicated to an important phase of the democratic awakening in the GDR that is little visible to the public today: the work of the Zentraler Runder Tisch (Central Round Table).

A round table has no head of the table. It promotes an egalitarian seating arrangement and style of discussion. This was crucial for the citizens’ movement that emerged in the GDR in the summer and autumn of 1989. At „round tables“ throughout the country, people debated both their own future and the future of the GDR. The Zentraler Runder Tisch first convened on 7 December 1989. Its subsequent meetings took place at Schönhausen Palace in Pankow. Here, representatives of the many newly founded political groups met with representatives of the established parties and the GDR government.

While searching for material traces, Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper discovered the discarded chairs from the Zentraler Runder Tisch in a shed in Pankow, where they had slipped into a disorderly Sturzlage („overturned position“). From this discovery she developed the installation „Sturzlage“. It reconstructs the state of disorder in which the chairs were found in 2018 and has previously been exhibited in Bonn and Leipzig.