Die Gläserne Kuh (UA)

It is barely two months before the opening of the 1981 agra agricultural exhibition. Everything has been meticulously planned and prepared, but before the agra can open its windows onto the world, the planned exhibition and its entire programme must be subjected to the usual inspection by the apparatus of state. After all, it’s not just any fair, but the GDR’s largest agricultural exhibition ever. And agriculture was – and still is today – a vital lynchpin for the shaping and upholding of a society.

In our scenic walking tour, we trace the countless stories, anecdotes and absurdities, the individual significances and politics that this location carries to this day. You, the audience, will become the inspecting commission who are greeted on the premises only a few weeks before the fair’s opening in 1981, and you will be given a presentation of what will be or – from today’s viewpoint – what was.

Falk Rößler and his team conducted research on the significance of the agra for the societies of the 1980s in East and West and created a scenic guided walk from their findings. What is our gaze over the area today? What has disappeared? What remains? And where exactly is the cow made of glass?