In 2015, Gregorio Iglesias Mayo and Miguel A. Aragón (M.F.A. in Studio Art, 2014) spent the entire summer at the Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünd. They would contribute to a historical exhibition at the site, Wunder mit Kalkül:Die Peenemünder Fernwaffenprojekte als Teil des deutschen Rüstungssystems (loosely translated as Miracle with calculus: The Peenemünde missile weapons projects as part of the German defense system) and are currently exhibiting together in a contemporary exhibition of their own works titled Imprinting History.
It is worthy of note that the Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünd is not technically an art museum, but a museum born of the historical significance of the site of Peenemünd. The site served as a power plant back in the WWII era and later was used during Soviet occupation of East Germany. In recent years, parts of facilities have been re-configured as gallery spaces for permanent historical and rotating contemporary exhibitions that speak to the historical, cultural and human aspects of the site. It was at Peenemünd that early rocket technology was developed by one of Germany’s leading scientists, Wernher von Braun, who would later secretly move to the United States and work with NASA to put man on the moon.
“The Historisch-Technisches Museum Peenemünde is a place charged with history, which altered human existence,” writes Aragón on the Till Richter Museum website. “It is a place that was built solely on the fact of its potential, which would never be fully reached until after the end of the Second World War. I am attracted to this relentless drive to realize the impossible despite the constant failures.”
What began as just the inclusion of a few pieces that Aragón and Mayo produced on site during their residency in a historical exhibition for the museum’s permanent galleries has turned into Imprinting History, a group exhibition of work from the two resident artists. Covering the museum grounds, Aragón would utilize the dust, earth and rust in his cyanotype process to imprint the land itself onto each print sheet.
Reflecting on the work in the exhibition, Aragón writes, “This body of work [created for the Historical-Technical Museum Peenemünd] is connected to my research as an artist, research that explores attempts to capture and freeze a specific moment, the marks of time, conveying the transitory nature of memory, reflecting on the process of recollection, fading memory and alluding to the transitory nature of human existence.”
A courtyard-length painting by Mayo, a large installation by Aragón as well as the documentation by the Catalan photographer Gala Oró will be exhibited in the Turbine Hall of the power plant Peenemünde from May 2016 to August 2017.
See more from the exhibition and Aragón at work in the video from the Till Richter Museum.