“PLUMM PASCHA” - Günter Grass- Haus (2025)

synopsis: From June 25 to November 9, 2025, Vanessa Cardui presents her video work PLUMM PASCHA as part of the exhibition “ELSE LASKER-SCHÜLER – Artist, Poet, World-Builder” at the Günter Grass- Haus, a museum dedicated to the literary work of Günter Grass and to contemporary intersections of literature and art. The piece offers an audiovisual reinterpretation of the comedy, originally written in 1913 by German-Jewish author and expressionist poet Else Lasker-Schüler. Using her signature stop-motion technique and an intuitive engagement with paper as material, Cardui transforms the original text into a tactile, audiovisual narrative space. The process of creation remains visible: the artist’s hands intervene directly – tearing, folding, layering. Characters emerge from fragments of paper, morphing into vividly colored figures. Plumm Pascha’s head becomes that of a violet bull, the deaf servant stumbles beneath his gadgets, and the princess frees herself from a crumpled ball of paper. Accompanied by classical music and voice-over of the original text, the piece takes on a new dimension – sensual, absurd, and alive. A contemporary, interdisciplinary dialogue between literature, image, and motion.

references: Stipendium/ Nachwuchsförderung (emerging artist scholarship) Kulturstiftung Hansestadt Lübeck, Günter- Grass- Haus 2025