Hotel Heimat: A Multimedia Experience

In March and November 2023, the “Hotel zur alten Stadtmauer” in Lübeck opened its doors for several days to around 2500 visitors. It was fully booked and integrated into the ongoing running of the hotel, presenting a unique multimedia installation: Hotel Heimat (Homeland Hotel), which addressed the issues of fleeing, displacement and new beginnings.

People who had left their homeland were welcomed with open arms at the hotel, where they could find friendship and support in order to start afresh. It was the perfect place for a multisensory journey into personal stories and fates.

The project by the collective UrbanProjection allowed those affected to tell moving stories about fleeing, displacement and new beginnings at 16 stations. Some of the installations were extensive, animated and dynamic, while others were hidden, small and mysterious – and distributed around the entirety of the hotel, in rooms, corridors, the kitchen or the washroom.

On their circuit, visitors discovered objects such as a white table with hands that drew a map and explain fleeing routes, while a bowl with nuts wandered back and forth on the table. In one of the rooms, they faced a young man called Rami who recounted his father’s dream of building a house, the nightmare of losing it again in the war and his own dream of rebuilding this house somewhere else in a different country. Guests lifted the lid of a pot in the kitchen. On the floor they could see a dish, a maqluba, being cooked – by Mohammad, whose mother in Syria was giving him instructions by telephone. Everyone was brought together at an international buffet, where the protagonists, the hotel team and the visitors met and interacted.

The concept set out to include the participating persons, to reflect together on the topics of refugees and homeland and to develop creative transformation strategies. This resulted in an artistic format that people can identify with and that authentically describes their situation. At the same time, the sharing of these sensitive topics helped the processing of individual experiences and enriched the collective team with insights into previously unknown worlds and lives.

After the end of the hotel exhibition, the individual installations were also shown at other venues on various occasions, such as during the theme day FLEEING at the Industriemuseum Geschichtswerkstatt Herrenwyk (Herrenwyk Industrial Museum and History Workshop) or at the Open Ateliers at VersuchsHaus Lübeck.