Gaby Peters
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	Sehnsucht Installation for the identically named exhibition at The Chalet, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, 2014 | fan, 10kg confetti | varies according to ceiling height x 2.00m x 3.00m |
	The fan is not running. The switch hangs in easy reach of the visitor who is tempted to reach out and turn on the fan. In an unobserved moment some of the visitors actually switch it on. Against all expectations little happens because the fan sits too far away from the confetti heap. Most observers are disappointed while soon having to laugh about their own reaction. "Sehnsucht always means the absence of something. Be it inside or outside, object or state, thought or human being. Actually however, it is not the object itself or the fellow human who is yearned for but rather an emotional state to which one wishes oneself back to or into. Often Sehnsucht, literally the addiction [Sucht] to yearning [sehnen], exists as an end in itself as the relishing in suffering, the deep/hearfelt/intimate painful longing, as a state which ultimately is never meant to end or to fulfill itself. Sehnsucht only works at a distance. If the yearned for encounter takes places, the yearner/one yearning realizes that the yearned for will for the most part not keep the promise which was being projected on it – reality disappoints the imagination. The yearned for emotion does not arise, or if so, only partly – the Sehnsucht remains unfulfilled. It is this state of unfulfillment, of projection, of illusion, which could be defined as Sehnsucht." (Gaby Peters: Text for "Sehnsucht & the Chalet Archive", The Chalet, Glasgow)