- Field Recording
- Reportage
- Atmospheric
Authors: Pien Butter, Gianluca Kropf, Lana Gabriele Loh
This audio walk explores the Duftgarten im Volkspark Friedrichshain as a site in which sensory experience, historical memory and emotional transformation come together. The walk invites listeners to move slowly through the park, aligning themselves with bodily perceptions, seasonal change and the layered meanings embedded within the landscape. Rather than merely prioritizing visual observation, the walk emphasizes breathing, movement, sound and imagined scent, thus coinciding with the original intentions of the Duftgarten as inclusive space, designed for blind and visually impaired visitors alike.
Historically, the Duftgarten challenges traditional understandings of perception by highlighting non-visual modes of engaging with nature. This framing becomes particularly meaningful during winter, a season in which fragrance is largely absent, posing the garden in a state of dormancy. The walk reframes this lack of sensory experience as a moment of anticipation, drawing parallels between the seasonal cycle of the park and the emotional transformations associated with motherhood. The statue in the middle of the garden, Mutter mit Kind (1898) functions both as symbolic and as historical anchor, representing themes of care, transition and the passage of time.
Mutter mit Kind, originally part of a paired installation with Vatergruppe, was relocated to the Duftgarten, disrupting its original spatial relationship. The weathered condition and displacement of this sculpture reveal how processes of urban development and decay can reshape the material presence of historical artworks and their intended meanings. By guiding listeners through the physical journey from the park's entrance to the statue, the audio walk opens up a reflective space in which history, sensory absence and emotional cycles coexist. Ultimately, the Duftgarten emerges as a site of quiet resilience, where growth unfolds beneath the surface, with meaning arising through attentive presence rather than immediate perception. The walk slows listeners down to occupy the space differently, closely listening while actively restoring attention to what persists beneath absence and change.
