Lilli Lake Turns Essen Church into Resonant Sound Installation for Manifesta 16

For Manifesta 16, artist Lilli Lake transforms the soon-to-be-deconsecrated Markuskirche in Essen into a sound installation titled 'Rhythm Looks for Two.' The modernist church, built in the early 1960s by Wolfgang Müller-Zantop and Heinz Kalenborn, features a distinctive copper-clad tent roof made of triangles and rectangles. Lake uses contact microphones to capture the building's creaks and groans—produced by its aging wood, concrete, and metal—and plays them back through speakers under the ceiling. The work references the church's original organ, which was never installed on its intended balcony; instead, a mobile organ was used. Lake, born 1995 in Mettingen and based in Düsseldorf, works primarily with sound and sculpture. The installation also incorporates stained glass windows by Düsseldorf-born artist Ursula Graeff-Hirsch (b. 1929). A tower-like structure by Augustas Serapinas allows visitors to approach the ceiling and the sound installation more closely. The church will be deconsecrated and repurposed later this year.