Mia Florentine Weiss

KREUZ WEG

„Ein friedliches Europa ohne Grenzen ist nicht selbstverständlich.“

Mia Florentine Weiss (b. Würzburg, 1980; lives and works in Berlin) makes conceptual art that grapples with questions of community, cultural identity, and the future of Europe. To mark the centennial of the Treaty of Versailles, Weiss will build a sprawling installation in Berlin’s St. Nicholas’ Church, transforming the nave into an outsize walkable steel crucifix laid down on the ground: a universal way of the cross. Complementing the cross installed in the former church’s interior, the artist will bring soil from the forty-seven member states of the Council of Europe to the exhibition space, which she gathered while traveling across the continent over the past two years. Mixing the topsoil from different countries, Weiss obtained a sample from an earth in which all boundaries have become obsolete. Pressed to form bricks made in series, the material forms another foundation for her engagement with European identity. The artist documented her work of collecting and her encounters with locals on film. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition, titled KREUZ WEG, traces the long-term project and explores its various stages and multiple facets. With a foreword by Minister of State Dorothee Bär and Senator for Culture and Europe in Berlin Klaus Lederer; a preface by the curator, Paul Spies; essays by Karlheinz Lüdeking, Sylvia Metz and Bettina Ruhrberg; and an interview with the artist by Stefan Trinks.