Fotoeins Fotografie

By HL fotoeins on 21 May 2021

Nigerian-American artist Olu Oguibe created the 16-metre high obelisk “Monument to Foreigners and Refugees” (Das Fremdlinge und Flüchtlinge Monument) for Kassel’s documenta 14 in 2017. On four sides is the inscription of a single sentence in Arabic, English, German, and Turkish, respectively:

.كنتُ غريبًا فآويتموني
I was a stranger and you took me in.
Ich war ein Fremdling und Ihr habt mich beherbergt.
Yabanciydim beni konuk ettiniz.

The line is directly from the Bible’s New Testament: the gospel of Matthew chapter 25 verse 35.

Initially placed at Königsplatz, the obelisk was dismantled after conservatives and the far-right complained about their comfort level with what little human capacity they had remaining. Fortunately, common sense prevailed: the city purchased the sculpture, and reinstallation took place in April 2019 at Treppenstrasse/Florentiner Platz (ArtNews | Frieze | HNA, Deutsch).

I made the photo above on 3 Oct 2017 with a Canon EOS6D mark1 and the following settings: 1/160-sec, f/16, ISO2000, 28mm focal length. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-kGA.