Flight and Metamorphosis - Nelly Sachs, Writer, Berlin/Stockholm

In May 1940 Nelly Sachs (*1891 Berlin - †1970 Stockholm) boarded one of the last flights out of Berlin to Stockholm. During the next thirty years in exile, she was treated several times at psychiatric clinics, gained literary acclaim late in life and eventually won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1966.

For the first time, Nelly Sachs’s poetic oeuvre was honored in a large travelling exhibition. A selection of unpublished material shown in the exhibition payed tribute to the radical nature of her writing and illustrated the cultural-historical context in which it emerged. Formerly unpublished photos and manuscripts from Sachs’s estate as well as unknown audio and video recordings documented her friendships with authors such as Paul Celan, Gunnar Ekelöf, Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Selma Lagerlöf. Furniture and personal belongings from the poet’s famous one-room apartment in the south of Stockholm offered a rare insight into her daily life.

In addition to the exhibition, Suhrkamp Verlag published an annotated edition of her complete works in four volumes, as well as an extensive exhibition catalogue, comprising over 200 illustrations and rare documents.

Curated by Aris Fioretos and designed by gewerk design, the exhibition was a collaboration with the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Jewish Theatre and the Royal Library, both in Stockholm, as well as the Swedish Embassy and Suhrkamp Verlag.

Artistic director / curator: Aris Fioretos
Project director / designer: Jens Imig
Participants: Birgit Schlegel, Klaus Fermor, Natascha Roshani

Schedule and venues:
25 Mar. 2010 - 27. June 2010 Jüdisches Museum, Berlin
2 Oct. 2010 - 1 Dec. 2010 Jewish Theatre Stockholm
15 Dec. 2010 - 27 Feb. 2011 Strauhof, Zürich
16 Mar. 2011 - July 2011 Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main
19 Nov. 2011 - 29 Jan. 2012 Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte der Stadt Dortmund