Future Needs remembrance

This proposal for a school in Berlin consists of a series of handwritten neon words drawn from the everyday vocabulary of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Alongside the official language of the state, a parallel vocabulary emerged through everyday life. Shaped by irony, humour and linguistic invention, these expressions described experiences that rarely appeared in official discourse and were often understood only by those who had lived them.

Installed throughout corridors, staircases and communal spaces, the illuminated words appear detached from the world that once gave them meaning. For most students they first read as poetic, enigmatic or even absurd fragments of language.

Only through conversation, research and shared interpretation do their histories gradually emerge. Words that once circulated informally become starting points for encounters between different generations, allowing forgotten expressions to recover the experiences they once carried.