Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse-Five, Messe Dresden

Memory wall and information

The artistically designed information light sculpture / memorial wall “Slaughterhouse Five” is visited all year-round by tourists from all over the world.
In the basement of the former slaughterhouse, the American author Kurt Vonnegut – like his protagonist Billy Pilgrim – survived the Allied bombing of Dresden on February 13, 1945 as a prisoner of war. By means of the multimedia literary sculpture, the viewer can experience the metamorphosis of the city of Dresden.
Through the artful superimposition of drawings, paintings, photographs, and city map excerpts, embedded in a complex grid of wood and Plexiglas, different time levels of the city’s history and at the same time the collage-like nature of the novel become visible. Illuminated from behind, the structure appears plastic, light and shadow become part of a larger picture.