Thursday, 30 August 2018, 07 pm

The Art of Elevation

The bridge – what a dubious intermediate world!
What had started out as a simple name for a structure that overcomes barriers has long since mutated into a symbolically charged term: We build bridges between people as well as between beliefs; we can burn bridges behind us or offer a bridge to someone. In literature, the bridge is, along with the river, one of the most important metaphors for crossing a border, a symbol between the conscious and the unconscious.
Even as a young kid in Bern, the Kirchenfeld Bridge made me take off into the fantastic. Suddenly, I was able even to read people’s minds. And yet it had all started out in a quite succinct and nightmare-like way:
“I was stiff and cold, I was a bridge, I lay over a ravine.” (Franz Kafka, 1917)

followed by a talk with Valérie Knoll (Director Kunsthalle Bern) and Reto Sorg (Director Robert Walser-Zentrum).
A collaboration between Kunsthalle Bern and Robert Walser-Zentrum, Bern.

This event is a collaboration between Kunsthalle Bern and Robert Walser-Zentrum, Bern.

Text: Tom Kummer
Photo: Patrick Strattner