Lecture Performance: Suite of Lithic Souvenirs

As part of "Walle! Walle* Contemporary Art in Goethe's Residence" the artist Lea Maria Wittich hosts a lecture performance on her intervention "Suite of Lithic Souvenirs".

The Goethehaus in Weimar accommodates an extensive geological collection consisting of three systematic collections and a greater part of so-called "suites". This term refers to collections arranged geographically or thematically. During his first Italian Journey, Goethe intensively studied the geological and mineral conditions, climbed the active Mount Vesuvius several times and collected at least seven suites. The "Suite of lithic souvenirs" is a fictional eighth suite that does not quite integrate into the geological collection. Here, a collection of souvenirs from the Italian Journey appear as if he intended them for his friend Charlotte von Stein, whose frequent correspondence supposedly ended with his departure. In her lecture performance, Lea Maria Wittich tells the stories of the objects in this suite. Between fiction and reality, past and future, the souvenirs unite in a poem of things. Human and geological peculiarities and temporalities blur from the ice age through Goethe’s times to the Anthropocene.

Please note the first lecture performance at 14:30 is held in German, the second one at 15:30 in English.