Tour for the Special Exhibition "Onion Pattern Project"

The Meissen Porcelain Manufactory has been producing its famous Onion Pattern for almost three hundred years now. The cobalt-blue decoration evolved from Chinese designs and has remained a favourite for banquets and the home to the present day. Artist Antye Guenther guides the pattern through occasionally crazy embroilments between the GDR and Japan.

Taking the GDR of the 1970s and 1980s as her cue, she tracks the pattern down in scenarios ranging from its being used as a means of payment in the illegal transfer of technology to the famous Dresden Zwinger reconstructed in Japan’s porcelain capital Arita. The artist narrates a science fiction story in which she enlists the Onion Pattern’s services as a clandestine storage medium for highly sensitive information. She devises new assignments for her secret agents in cooperation with the Manufactory.

Duration: approx. 1 hour

Photo: Onion Pattern Project exhibition
(collage with Onion Pattern Project reference material © Antye Guenther, MPS)