shine bright like

spatial installation: archive shelves, archived images, digital photos exposed as slides, Kodak Carousel projectors, greenhouse panels, mirror foil

In Shine Bright Like, Margarita Wenzel utilizes the “glitch”—an error or break in a structured system—to disrupt the celebratory narrative of the former Leipziger Krystallpalast. The exhibition refuses to uncritically absorb the history of this site, instead highlighting its colonial roots and its role in the exoticization of the “Other.” […] Wenzel employs digital tools to isolate archival caricatures, projecting them onto a ghostly architecture of dismantled archive shelves, vintage projectors, and silver-coated windows.

This spatial intervention visually mirrors the extractive methods of the colonial imaginary, using modern mobile phone photography to re-examine institutionalized history. […] A recurring motif is the figure of Atlas; once a proud emblem of Western civilization, he is here demystified to question his authoritative command over world knowledge. […] Resulting from years of research into the media discourse of German colonialism, Wenzel’s site-specific installation uses these unruly “glitches” to challenge modern urban progress and expose the aspects of history that are conveniently ignored.

Text by Alison Hugill

Exhibition at the a&o Kunsthalle Leipzig

Photos by Michael Ehritt

The project was funded by the Cultural Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt, the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation and the stART-Foundation.