Droste Digital. Manuscripts – Rooms – Installations

Original manuscripts by the writer Annette von Droste-Hülshoff meet artistic installations: The authors Dorothee Elmiger and Nora Gomringer, the collectives Anna Kpok and Hyphen-Labs and the video artist Roman Hagenbrock reinterpret and restage the manuscripts and bring their worlds of thought into the present.

The manuscripts from the writer’s Meersburg estate show tiny, barely legible letters crowded together on the pages, often filling the paper to the brim with numerous corrections and revisions. Droste’s manuscripts are impressive text images with an aesthetic all of their own. These manuscripts were extensively digitised between 2019 and 2021. The exhibition takes a close look at them and uses digital technologies to uncover the writing and creation processes.