Am Rhein blüht schönres Leben, 2026.
Intervention, wall carving.
Intervention, wall carving.
The work was implemented as part of After Hours – Haus Am Rhein exhibition in a villa on the banks of the Rhine in Basel, scheduled for demolition in autumn 2026. The group project transformed the former residence into a hybrid space for artistic production, residency and exhibition.
For her site-specific work, Sonia Andrews engages Rhine Romanticism – an artistic and literary movement formed at the threshold of industrial transformation that set the Rhine as a site where loss could be aestheticised through poetry, myth, and image.
Andrews’ work begins with the opening lines of Adelheid von Stolterfoth’s poem Rheinisches Leben (1800–1875) that stages this tension between loss and return. The text is engraved directly in the walls of one of the basement rooms – a slow, material act that embeds Romantic memory into the building’s surface. The poem becomes both trace and erosion, as if writing were already a form of weathering.
Andrews’ work begins with the opening lines of Adelheid von Stolterfoth’s poem Rheinisches Leben (1800–1875) that stages this tension between loss and return. The text is engraved directly in the walls of one of the basement rooms – a slow, material act that embeds Romantic memory into the building’s surface. The poem becomes both trace and erosion, as if writing were already a form of weathering.
Photos: Lucie Schrag
Text: CienCień
Text: CienCień
Am Rhein blüht schönres Leben
Aus der Vernichtung Staub,
Der Ahnen Geister schweben,
Die längst des Grabes Raub;
Und neue Lieder dort erklingen
Mit wunderbarem Gruss,
Die leis' ich wieder singen
Und wieder träumen muss.
Aus der Vernichtung Staub,
Der Ahnen Geister schweben,
Die längst des Grabes Raub;
Und neue Lieder dort erklingen
Mit wunderbarem Gruss,
Die leis' ich wieder singen
Und wieder träumen muss.
Along the Rhine, fair life is blooming
From the dust of ruin and decay;
The spirits of the ancestors are drifting,
Though long since claimed by the grave.
And there new songs are sounding,
Bearing a wondrous greeting;
Softly I sing them once again,
And once again I must dream.
From the dust of ruin and decay;
The spirits of the ancestors are drifting,
Though long since claimed by the grave.
And there new songs are sounding,
Bearing a wondrous greeting;
Softly I sing them once again,
And once again I must dream.
Adelheid von Stolterfoth (1800-1875),
Rheinisches Leben
Rheinisches Leben
