Sonya Schönberger

God With Us (250 Million <-> 1 Million)

Multimedia Installation, 2024

In her multimedia installation, Sonya Schönberger explores connections between local mining history and radioactive waste storage within the former salt mine of Morsleben, Saxony-Anhalt, which served as the GDR’s final repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste and that now remains as a final waste repository. The installation focuses on the unique salt there, and the history of the “Bartensleben” shaft in Morsleben and the “Marie” shaft in Beendorf that is connected to it. Both communities play an important role in Schönberger’s artistic examination. Both towns were located in the highly controlled border area, where employees of the radioactive waste repository needed permits to work unless they lived there. Beendorf is home to a small, volunteer-run museum that focuses on the history of forced labor in the “Marie” shaft during the Nazi era. Schönberger juxtaposes this recent history with the vast timescales encapsulated by the salt rock’s deep-time history  and the future that the stored nuclear waste will inhabit.

Potash and rock salt mining in the Oberen Allertal region originated in Beendorf, where entrepreneur Gerhard Korte commissioned the region’s first mine shaft. His mining company was named “God With Us.” The shaft, named after Korte's wife, was inaugurated as “Marie” in 1897. Until 1969, potash and rock salt were extracted from the underground-linked mines Marie and Bartensleben, the latter of which began operations shortly after Marie; both now form the whole of the Morsleben repository.

The landscape of Beendorf is dominated by a massive salt pile excavated from below the ground. Schönberger connects this overground remnant of salt mining with the immense cosmos lying just beneath, underground. A camera journey reveals the vast dimensions of the interconnected shafts, showing the network of tunnels and chambers carved into the salt where, starting in 1944, forced laborers from across Europe were made to work for the Nazi arms industry. Schönberger includes quotations from these laborers, drawn from Björn Kooger's extensive 2004 publication, Rüstung unter Tage (Arms Race Underground), which documents the injustices and crimes that occurred underground. The presence of these testimonies actively resists the burial of this history as the repository itself is sealed and closed for good.

Salt rocks from the mine, which Schönberger transported into the exhibition space, acts almost like quotations in stone. They are relics of 250 million years of history; Morsleben and Beendorf’s salt rock are anchor points for geological time, hinting at vast time scales involved in both the past and the future of these places. This salt formation, currently used to store low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, was formed during the geological epoch known as the Zechstein and was moved to its current location through tectonic shift and pressure from deeper geological layers. This quality of having survived movement underlines why salt is qualified as a material for the permanent storage of radioactive waste: it is non-brittle, ductile (malleable), yet it is hard. Thus, it meets many of the criteria sought for in the search for a suitable final repository. The Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (Bundesgesellschaft für Endalgerung, BGE), which runs an information center in Morsleben about their underground research has a main task to identify suitable areas within the salt mine for potential final storage that will last the next million years.

Special thanks for support to Anna Byskov, Swantje Claußen (BGE), Hildegard and Klaus Ebel, Christian Guinchard and Laetitia Ogorzelec (LaSA, Laboratory of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Franche-Comté), Claus Hansper, Claire Kueny (ISBA Besançon), Péter László Horváth (BGE), Annette and Torsten Kniep, Flo Maak, Sven Petersen (BGE), Karla and Hartmut Schulze, and Christof Zwiener.

SONYA SCHÖNBERGER
Sonya Schönberger is a Berlin-based artist whose practice deals with biographical ruptures against the backdrop of political or social upheaval. The source of her artistic exploration are the people themselves, who tell about their stories in biographical conversations. This is how some archives were created, but also already existing, partly found archives flow into her work. Five years ago, she created the "Berliner Zimmer," a long-term video archive based on the stories of people in Berlin.

www.sonyaschoenberger.de
www.berliner-zimmer.net