Poetry Is Out of Place
Jakob Ganslmeier

Firstly, I would like to thank the producers, Bas Vroege and Ana Zibelnik. Ana became not only co-author of the Public Enlightenment series but contributed to all aspects of the project. There is not one piece that has not passed through her hands. Without your support and intellectual input, the entire body of work would not have been possible. The same goes for Bas who was ever ready to go the extra mile, allowing this work to grow through endless feedback sessions, late night editing, always with a positive energy and a sharp mind. Your trust in the works from the very beginning has left me with the feeling that the glass is always half full. We learned a new Dutch proverb with every phase of the project. It was a pleasure to cooperate.

Secondly, I would like to thank Simon Stranger for establishing the connection with the Ekne Choir and helping me out during the filming. Though our cooperation didn't work out, I am very grateful to have gone through this journey with you.

I appreciated the open-minded approach of the Falstad team — Ingeborg Hjorth, Ingvild Hagen Kjørholt, Pia and Christian Wee, among others. The process was bumpy and the subject undoubtedly difficult, but I truly admire your progressive approach and braveness in giving me the opportunity to work around the topic of perpetrator perspectives. You gave me a lot of artistic freedom, allowing me to bring this perspective into the here and now. Many thanks also to Anton Wagner for your help during my stay at Falstad.

I am immensely grateful to our website team Daniël Santé and Marco Damiš. Not only for your creative input, but your spontaneity, patience and always finding a way to make things work. Furthermore, I would like to thank Tiago Rosado for jumping in at the last minute and developing the amazing renders of 'Where Dreams Come Home,” and Jan Jenko for manually retouching 1427 frames of mistakes that could have been avoided if we had more sleep. I am grateful to Darius Timmer for sound design, Ernst Reijsegger for composing the beautiful piece for ‘A New Beginning’, and Loes Luca for playing ‘Ingrid’ — how you interpreted my script was simply “immaculate”.

Last, but not least; thank you to the Houses of Darkness advisory board for sharing your thoughts and concerns on the project in its early stages, especially to Sabina Tanović and Michael Branthwaite.

Jakob Ganslmeier (b. 1990) is a photographer and visual artist based in Germany and the Netherlands. In his practice, he focuses on dismantling visual representation of radical ideologies and offering counter-narratives through a participatory artistic approach. His most notable work Haut, Stein (2017-2020) focuses on National Socialist symbology which remains visible to this day. It interrogates the persistence, use, and obliteration of these signs in two distinct formats: as the structural ornaments and architecture through which the symbols of National Socialism linger in public space; and as tattoos, by which the same signs serve to reaffirm an individual's commitment to right-wing extremism. The series has been shown at memorials as well as art institutions such as Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow — MOCAK, Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, and the Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst. Ganslmeier’s long term commitment to researching extremism and perpetrator narratives has manifested itself in the works Bygone Nearby (2020), Thread (2021), and most recently Poetry Is out of Place (2022).