In the cinema, “Day X” occurs all the time: Natural catastrophes, epidemics or the
collapse of the global financial market lead to the collapse of supply and protection
systems and people having to defend their lives. But what sounds like a dystopian
blockbuster is real fear: the so-called prepper scene builds up food stocks and collects
potential barter goods that could ensure survival in an emergency. Even more radical
was the extreme right-wing network of Bundeswehr soldiers, police officers and
employees of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz),
which was uncovered at the end of 2018, around a Sergeant Major known
in chat forums under the name Hannibal. The latter was preparing for a takeover of
power after “Day X” with the purchase of weapons and combat training over a period
of years.
The artist Henrike Naumann (*1984) sets up a prepper shop at Friedensplatz Dortmund
with used retail equipment and home accessories. Instead of weapons and
barter goods, household appliances, especially design classics from the 1980s and
90s, are offered here. The interest in the relationship between the aesthetics of private
living spaces or business facilities and the formation of political opinion, including radicalisation,
runs like a red thread through Naumann’s work. In the spatial installation
Tag X too, she brings both into a direct context: In postmodern shop fittings, design
lemon presses can be found as weapons for self-defence. Symbols of bourgeois prosperity
and economic security become combat equipment.