M HKA Ensembles

Book, two books; 22 x 14.5 cm, language: German, publisher: Czernin Verlag, ISBN: 3-7076-0052-1.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2025/989).

Literary synopsis

The haggard-looking Alicia, 52 years old, comes to rent a room in the Sommer family’s home on a hot day in July. The Sommer family consists of 33-year-old Franco and his two children: the somewhat irascible 8-year-old Sinischa and the over-sensitive 6-year-old Valentin. The children’s mother, Magdalena, died in this house two years ago, after many years of suffering from cancer. Since then, Sophia, a teenager from the neighborhood, has helped Franco with the housekeeping and the two children. Just as the new renter moves in, Franco finds a new job into which he increasingly withdraws. Conversely Alicia, much to Sophia’s disappointment, makes herself ever more indispensable to the young family’s household and to their father.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Sabine Groschup had conversations about ghosts and about what happens after death with some 40 friends in the arts and sciences. The two most significant questions were: “Do you believe in ghosts?” And: “Do you believe in life after death?” It was an intensive round of discussions that took off in the most disparate philosophical and religious directions, and included experiential reports and stories. These series of interviews supplied the material for Sabine's debut novel Alicia und die Geister and for her film Ghosts – Nachrichten von Wem, which is composed of stills based on analog photography, double exposures, and painted phased animation on film. Alicia und die Geister is a two-volume publication. The adjunct paperback volume contains quotes taken from the conversations. The main hardcover volume is the novel. In it, everything revolves around the “uncanny” in life. Each chapter of the novel is introduced by a quote from one of the interviews.

Novel's website