The starting point for her installation for 30 Artists / 30 Spaces is the diary-like novel, The Box Man, written by Japanese author Kôbô Abe in 1973, whose protagonist bids farewell to his present life to move into a box, into a mini-universe 50 x 50 cm in size, which gradually mutates into the real universe in which the box man can take up a position of observation, unnoticed and uninhibited. He draws up a new, private cartography of the city and makes classifications based on opportunities and probabilities. This life in the city of the nameless may be limited, but it is also liberating. Isa Melsheimer visualises and processes various fragments of this story in her installation, she presents – cast in concrete – the possessions of the box man and a curtain which can con- ceal the inaccessible urban landscape, a sea of houses made of glass. ( Dr. Melitta Kliege )
