The Handkerchief
In September 2025, the State Institute for Qualification and Quality Development in Schools (LI Hamburg) hosted Heritage Open Day, coinciding with the institution’s centenary. As a multidisciplinary artist working with memory, I was invited to create a performative work focused on the history of teacher training in Hamburg. Inspired by the handkerchief ritual in Herta Müller's 2009 Nobel Prize lecture, I structured my walk around the meanings and actions associated with this familiar object, inviting participants to engage with it directly. If Herta Müller saw in the handkerchief a marker of affection - a sign of care her mother showed when seeing her daughter off to school, - my project introduces several additional layers related to informal learning, audience agency, and counter-monument activism. Among other key elements included in the performance are custom handkerchiefs, a Polaroid camera, artifacts from the Hamburg School Museum, and the sound of a Weimar-era school bell.
Performative Walk “The Handkerchief”
2025
Textile, Spoken Word, Sound, Bronze Sculpture on a Mobile Stand,
Historical Objects from the Hamburg School Museum, Polaroid Camera.
Duration: 50 min.
Exhibited at the State Institute for Qualification and Quality Development in Schools, Hamburg, on the occasion of the Heritage Open Day, 14.09.2025
Photo credit: Claudia Höhne; the participants of the performative walk (polaroids)
Image sources: https://untietotie.org/event/die-leerstellen-fuellen-koloniale-fragmente-im-kontext-schule/, https://www.ew.uni-hamburg.de/ueber-die-fakultaet/aktuell-2025/25-07-04-interview-sidney-oliveira.html,The Hamburger Schulmuseum (School Museum), https://www.gew.de/aktuelles/detailseite/verhaertung-und-frontenbildung
With thanks to Celina Rahman, Dr. Silke Urbanski, the team at the Hamburger School Museum, and Katharina Bosse.
Below: Memory cues created and captured by participants via Polaroid.
The sculpture "The Handkerchief" is inspired by Herta Müller's Nobel Prize lecture, "Every Word Knows Something of a Vicious Circle." Against the backdrop of the Ceaușescu dictatorship in Romania, Müller shares personal memories, such as her mother's daily question about her handkerchief. Müller illustrates how even seemingly simple words can carry a hidden, complex meaning, and how genuine human connection is replaced by a prescribed, empty vocabulary.
Historically, handkerchiefs often served as a medium for printing important social events. They were silent witnesses to tears, stories, love messages, and goodbyes, thus symbolizing personal narratives that are often not represented by traditional monuments. The sculpture "Handkerchief" depicts a textile sheath that transitions into a knotted handkerchief held in the arm, commonly signifying a memory prompt. Just as different personalities can be projected onto the sculpture, the work is not about one privileged perspective, but the exchange of knowledge and memories.
The Handkerchief
2024
Patinated bronze; print on fabric, chicken wire, metal
40 x 45 x 15 cm; 205 x 105 x 3 cm
Exhibited at Habibi Kiosk, Kammerspiele Munich as part of the show Global Munich. In perspective 21.6. - 29.6.2024
Catalog in German and English, p. 30 - 35
History is what we carry with us by Luísa Telles
Supported by Käte Hamburger Kolleg global dis:connect Munich and Kammerspiele, Munich.
Photo credit: Michael Mönnich, Florian Laufhütte
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