Sacred distancing

Abstract

Churches all over the world, not only clubs and restaurants, have also had to deal with distance regulations and contact restrictions in the last 2 years. The artist Albert Coers gathers photos of this in his artist booklet "Sacred Distancing": they are pictures of coloured stickers, arrows, coloured ribbons or signs indicating paths through church aisles and rows of pews in churches in Berlin, Munich, Venice, Münster, Sanary-sur-Mer. Churches traditionally see themselves as open to all people, but in practice this has presented challenges for small and large congregations. Anyone who has attended a service or wanted to visit a church in recent years has found themselves in these individual guidance systems - often installed by volunteers - which almost seem like artistic installations or choreographies. Questions arise about the relationship between (sacred) space and use, distance and proximity, pragmatics and aesthetics. The booklet is published on the occasion of the exhibition "Immunity" (Galerie der Künstler, Munich), where Coers transferred marking strips for entry and exit through the pews of a church as well as numbered chairs into the gallery space.