Lots of people collect things. They amass objects that they preserve haphazardly or store neatly in albums, cupboards or boxes. Many homes are full of such mysterious relics of personal history, testifying to the interests, emotions and desires of their collectors.

Laura Kikauka, too, collects things. Found objects, unusual objects, flashing objects and garish objects dominate her personal surroundings and form part of her temporary installations. This Canadian artist used such items to transform her current working and living space in the eastern part of Berlin into an installation called 'Funny Farm East'. What at first sight appears to be an accidental accumulation of objects, reveals itself on closer inspection to be carefully ordered. The arrangement does not remain static, however, but is continually added to or decorated with new handmade objects.

Kikauka lives her art. Her installations bear witness to her daily use of consumer goods and her recycling of them, also to an apparently insatiable delight in decorative shaping and ordering. For Messestadt, Kikauka has conceived a 'model home'. In autumn 2001 she will furnish a home with a large variety of objects and installations, decorate it and open it to the public as a model for the creative use of living space. The shape, location and function of the individual rooms form part of her concept. Her constructed furnishings and decorative objects provide an ironic, witty commentary on the conventional use of the rooms. 'Fuss-Fetische' (foot fetishes) and 'Willkommen-Aromas' (welcoming aromas), for example, greet the visitor in the entrance area. While a beer fountain splashes in the bathtub and electronic flowers invite the visitor to relax on the balcony, 'Kinderwahnsinn' (mad children's disease) rages in a children's room full of toy dreams. Kikauka's worlds are strange worlds that offer a glimpse of other, colourful, almost surreal realms. Whoever wishes to recover from this cornucopia of visual stimuli can calm their ruffled senses in a white room designed by the artist for this purpose.

Summer 2001