The countdown echoes a horror, but to someone else it could recall language examination rooms, where the same clocks are counting down the time for writing a letter to an imaginary friend.

This is my first essay in German, written at the beginning of June 2025, while preparing for the exam. The set of sheets stylistically inherits the didactic logic of ready-made forms of educational materials and manuals, yet also resists it: in an attempt to re-appropriate the rigid constructions of the language for oneself, in order to express reality. In this way, the text condenses history and its angels.

This work was made specifically for and shown for the first time within the framework of the travelling pavilion of The Broken Gallery within the project “Attacke der Retroavantgarde: Kunststudierende als KomplizInnen des Kunstmarktes” which accompanied Art Basel 2025. Many thanks to Cristian Jankowski and his class at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart (ABK Stuttgart), who invited me to participate. The work functioned as an installation, which included large clocks.

In the online version the full set of images and texts is available in the original order of reading, implying also the logic of a loop. This may be most legible to people who have gone through integration and German language courses being displaced persons, refugees and migrants. Nevertheless the text is directed at those who handle bureaucratic correspondence, endowed with symbolic power, hidden behind many copies and screens.I am releasing this work across several platforms, and will be glad if it finds new recipients. Feel free to read, translate, print and share.

Web-zine edition. Graphic and essay in German. Download PDF online!