over under water.

As part of the annual “Day of the Monument 2023”, the Emschergenossenschaft (Emscher Cooperative) has invited artists Nikola Dicke and Mirijam Streibl to create a site-specific live performance that artistically reflects the facets of the pumping station. Sound researcher Mirijam Streibl deals with sound environments (soundscapes) and for three years has been intensively exploring the acoustic aspects of water. Nikola Dicke creates site-specific light installations that re-contextualise space. The drawings, which are projected onto buildings or walls, stage our surroundings in an unusual way. The two artists work together for the first time for the Day of the Monument. The result is a light and sound work that unfolds from the pump shaft into the room, focussing on the architecture, the technical structures and the central element of the plant – the water. The sounds of the Emscher and the Evinger Bach are interwoven with water projections and underwater images of both streams to create a collage that floods the hall and transforms it into an immersive installation that resembles an aquarium. Movements and states of water as well as its life-giving and destructive power are stored and released again in space.

(Agnes Sawer, Emschergenossenschaft Lippeverband)