Video-Performance
“String Tension History” is an installation and video performance that centers on the relationship between the artist and her historic harp. Having arrived in Germany on the day the First World War began and having survived both World Wars, the harp is now at a breaking point.
What is the sound of transformation? The video performance, which will be premiered in the lecture hall ruin at the Berlin Museum of Medical History, documents the harp’s restoration process both sonically and visually. It follows the restorer’s hands as he breaks the harp open and reassembles it. The sound is recorded from an internal perspective using binaural microphones placed inside the “belly” of the instrument – creating an immersive and intimate environment. Subtle vibrations and sudden crackings are captured with contact microphones, alongside vocal elements, as the artist sings a lamento into the harp’s resonant body.
The harp’s history is set alongside the artist’s own family history: her German great-grandfather signed forced sterilizations in the name of the Nazi eugenics policy of a “healthy nation.” In the face of these horrific violations of bodies by fascist power, the question of transformation – or even healing – seems impossible. With careful reflection, the artist considers her own contemporary experience of surgeries and the loss of fertility resulting from a gynecological tumor and endometriosis – a condition that, for many women, still remains undiagnosed for far too long.
Ultimately, the harp stands as a transformed object, bearing the traces of its own history and articulating a shared narrative of bodies marked by transformation and resilience.
Kirstin Burckhardt (b. in South Africa) is a visual artist and psychotherapist combining video and performance with sound and spoken word. Critically drawing upon her training in psychology and neuroscience, her practice addresses power dynamics intertwined with the body. Continuously questioning what defines a “body”, her artistic research focuses on interpersonal space as a locus for negotiating sensitivity, conflict, empathy, transgenerational trauma, and the complexities of healing.
Webpage: www.k-burckhardt.de
Instagram: @kirstinburckhardt
Performance: October 10. 7 pm / Berlin Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité (Bmm)
RELATED EVENTS
Installation on view from September 26. until October 11. at: Berlin Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité (Bmm)
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Photo: String Tension History, video still, Kirstin Burckhardt © 2026