2015
Installation view, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich
Repurposed shipping container, rugs, terracotta, ephemera, wood, metal, shelving, books, ambient lighting.

Loss Opium Den, commissioned for the exhibition Common Grounds, transforms a shipping container into an intimate, symbol-laden environment suggestive of an opium den—a historically exoticized space associated with altered states, here linked to cultural memory and nostalgia. The title, drawing on Marx's notion of religion as the "opiate of the people," invites reflection on how cultural symbols and heritage can act as comforting “opium” that both soothes and conceals deeper historical traumas. Blending architectural references like a Villa Müller-inspired bookshelf with custom terracotta pots shaped as poppy buds—the source of opium—the installation probes how cultural forms are reshaped through trade, migration, and commodification. This space, both inviting and unsettling, challenges viewers to consider whether preserving cultural artifacts serves as genuine memory or as an illusory escape, confronting what is retained, lost, or transformed in the transmission of heritage across “common grounds” of globalized exchange.

2015
Installation view, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich

2015
Installation view, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich

Detail

2015
Installation view, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich

Detail

Detail

Detail