Preisträger 2008:
Shirin Homann-Saadat

Armour Box 001/Landmine Box


(Bild und Text der website von Homann-Saadat entnommen)

The Landmine Box houses 5 anti-personnel mines and includes the Butterfly - a small mine that is often mistaken for a toy by children.

The mines are 1:1 casts showing the exact shape and scale of their explosive originals:
each of them fits into the palm of a hand.

While under construction, the box contained research into the work of mine action groups, medical aid organisations and mine-producing countries.
It also included fieldwork done in Bosnia, Kosovo and at the Iran-Iraq border.

Overnight the box mutated: the fieldwork and research had disappeared and all the mines had turned to gold. They now rest on a red velvet carpet.

The lid of the box contains the mines' technical data. The lid’s exterior is covered with a nursery rhyme.

The Landmine Box is not insured during exhibitions, since its gold mines are often picked up by grown-ups who mistake them for toys.

(regards to the Sprengschule Dresden + D. Pausch for advice on mines+cluster bombs)

Armour Box 002/Munitions
Box for the German Parliament

The Munitions Box was commissioned for an exhibition in favour of banning landmines and cluster bombs in the German Parliament.

Shells of mines and cluster bombs were fixed to the box with metal hooks so that politicians could get physically close to the weapons without being able to steal them. Although the empty munition shells were fixed in place, the Munitions Box raised security concerns in Parliament. They locked and sealed the box in the run-up to the exhibition. For the opening, however, they asked the Parliament's Vice Chancellor to unlock the box for media coverage and a photo of this process was published on German Parliament's homepage. After the media had left, the box was banned from the exhibition for security reasons. The very people who decide for and against the use of these weapons needed protection from a wooden box containing empty munition shells. Banning the Box led to a lawsuit. A recipe book on "how to carry mines into parliament without causing trouble" is being prepared.