Fabian Saul: This Is How the Light Remembers

For twelve days, two people move through the empty flat of a friend who has passed away – a space in which texts that have been left behind, music, films and voices from the past echo. Within this experience lies the seed of a quiet hope – a search, perhaps, for a different future.

With ‘This Is How The Light Remembers’, German author and composer Fabian Saul expands his novel ‘Die Trauer der Tangente’ (The Mourning of the Tangent) (2024) into an exhibition; the novel turns into an immersive installation.

Mourning appears in this context not as a private retreat, rather as a polyphonic engagement with the world and the beginning of shared solidarity. Private and political mourning permeate one another: the voices of influential artists, thinkers and political figures echo in the death of the loved one. They speak of a world that could have been different, a world that remains ever open to change.

Performances, discussions, screenings and concerts expand on the themes in dialogue with figures from the worlds of art, music and literature, exploring the question of how grief can be shared and negotiated not only privately, but socially, too.

Production:

Voice: Tanasgol Sabbagh

Typography: Ira Ivanova

Scenography: Danica Andjelkovic

Risograph printing: Sébastien Millot / Studio Yukiko

Curated by Tasnim Baghdadi

The exhibition is a collaboration between Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst and zürich liest 2025.

Several events can be listened to here. Click here for more information about the events:

Stoff aus Luft: Das Verschwinden

«Common Mourning» – A Conversation on the Politics of Grief