Ruth Thomas

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STRIPE PARLIAMENTS

The German Federal Parliament from 1949 to 2017

The very first appearance in 2017 of a right-wing populist party in the German Federal Parliament forms the basis of this work. The number of elected AfD representatives defines the height of the two knitted pictures (94 seats = 94 stitches).

Each stitch corresponds to one seat, each colour to one parliamentary group. The order of the groups corresponds to the traditional seating in the German Federal Parliament: The Left, SPD, The Greens, CDU/CSU, FDP, AfD.

Both works show the 19 parliaments to date (each on the day of the respective federal election). In one, the parliaments are shown separately in chronological order, while in the other, they are combined and arranged according to the individual groups.

(Various smaller parties that were represented in parliament before the introduction of the five-percent hurdle in 1953 are combined here for the sake of simplicity and shown in grey between CDU/CSU and FDP.)

The resulting stripe patterns reveal the clear dominance of CDU/CSU and SPD, as well as the relative lack of commotion in Germany's political landscape until a completely new element appeared in 2017 with the emergence of the AfD.

Detached from the political context, the abstract stripe pattern captivates by its strong and surprisingly balanced colourfulness, which is nothing more than the result of a given concept.

(knitted mohair wool, works 62 x 34 cm, frames 72 x 52 cm, 2017)