Spielraum is a single book sculpture installation, addressing the notion of “inner solitary confinement” – what is it like to be confined to your own memory and cultural context? A study of the works of the first black German philosopher, Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703-1759). How free are our thoughts when the body is isolated from its surroundings? How long can a spirit and, according to Amo, a soul feast on the positive memories of a “free” life? Both sentences and the portrait, written on the paper, quotations from Amo’s Apatheia text, appear abstract. They give impulses, stimulate thinking – they themselves become a scope, a Spielraum- to reflect on ‘Otherness’. Amo questioned his “given” space/place in 1734. We still can relate today.

As a child “gifted” to the count of Wolfenbüttel, Germany, Anton Wilhelm Amo Afer Guinea grew up to become Germany’s first Black Philosopher.

Spielraum: The space “given” as well as the space to play in.

Spielraum won the 2022 Artist Book Prize from the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.

Dimensions: 24 x 24 x 1 inch (folded book), 14 x 14 feet (unfolded book), 2 x 2 x 6 feet (hanging sculpture)
Deliver time: 4 weeks