During his five-week stay as a “SchUM Artist in Residence” in the state capital of Mainz, the German-French artist Raphaël Fischer-Dieskau engaged intensively with the Jewish history of the SchUM congregations and the traces of cultural loss. Raphaël Fischer-Dieskau celebrated the conclusion of his residency together with Mayor Nino Haase on May 27 as part of a public presentation of his art project. The artist was accompanied by a cello ensemble from the Mainz University of Music under the direction of Prof. Manuel Fischer-Dieskau, the artist’s father. 

He installed his sound installation “The Magenza Protocols – Transmission After Rupture” in the area of the former Jewish guardhouse on Klarastraße. It was on display there for just over a week. The work, developed specifically for Mainz, consists of shipping crates that symbolically refer to the Jewish diaspora as well as experiences of uprooting and expulsion. Hidden inside are speakers from which liturgical chants and prayers in the tradition of Mainz’s former Jewish community can be heard.

For centuries, these voices had been an integral part of Jewish life in the SchUM cities, until the Nazis eradicated Jewish life in 1938 and silenced the songs forever. With this installation, Fischer-Dieskau symbolically returned these lost voices to their historical place of origin.

The interplay between the artwork and its surroundings was particularly striking: The sound installations reacted sensitively to sounds from the public space, thereby creating a vibrant acoustic dialogue between the past and the present, as well as with passersby.

Sound Installation Returns During Opening Week of the New Visitor Center at the Old Jewish Cemetery

Raphaël Fischer-Dieskau’s sound installation will once again be on view and available to experience as part of the opening week of the visitor center at the Old Jewish Cemetery, beginning September 6.