ESSEN.- Visitors to the Ruhr Museum at the UNESCO World Heritage site Zollverein can now take part in shaping an exhibition themselves, thanks to SPEICHER II, an interactive artwork by Berlin-based artist Jörg Sasse. On loan to the museum for two years, the installation is on view from February 26, 2026, through March 31, 2028, on the 17-meter level of the museum’s permanent exhibition.
Blending photography, sculpture, and archival practice, SPEICHER II functions as a three-dimensional, walk-in photo archive rather than a static display. The mobile storage structure, accessible from all sides, contains 512 framed photographs documenting life in the Ruhr region from the 1950s to 2009. Drawn from anonymous collections, photographic estates, and Sasse’s own work, the images were selected from an original pool of around 2,000 photographs and carefully edited to form a visually cohesive set.
What makes the installation distinctive is the role of the audience. Organized according to 56 thematic categories — including everyday life, workplaces, interiors and exteriors, rituals, winter scenes, housing, and home — the archive invites visitors to search, select, and combine images themselves. The result is not a fixed exhibition but an evolving visual narrative shaped by public participation.
To encourage this process, the museum hosts a weekly “invitation to hang pictures” every Thursday at 3:30 pm. During these sessions, visitors work with a museum guide to choose photographs from the archive, arrange them into new groupings, and display their selections on the wall beside the installation. Each session produces fresh constellations of images, unexpected connections, and new perspectives on the region’s history and identity. In this way, the exhibition continuously transforms, effectively curated not by the institution but by its audience.
Museum director Prof. Heinrich Theodor Grütter describes the work as a repository of the Ruhr region’s collective memory, bringing together familiar scenes, anonymous moments, and personal traces. Installed at Zollverein — itself a landmark of the region’s industrial heritage — the artwork gains additional resonance, offering visitors a chance to connect their own experiences and associations with the images and to reassemble the story of the Ruhr region again and again.
For Sasse, the project centers on openness and possibility. Rather than presenting a definitive narrative, the installation allows for endless recombination, ensuring that each visitor’s choices can reveal a different story or viewpoint. Stefanie Grebe, head of the Ruhr Museum’s photographic collection, notes that the work expands the museum’s photographic displays by making the fluidity of visual interpretation tangible and by giving visitors a direct, hands-on understanding of how photographic meaning can shift through context.
Participation in the Thursday sessions requires no advance registration and is free with admission to the permanent exhibition, reinforcing the museum’s aim to make the evolving archive accessible to all.
