21–Memories of Growing Up

In the long-term project 21 people talk about the year in which they were 21 and how they became grown up. The video installation shows the storytellers as listeners to their own memories and the collection as a whole spans an arc across generations and languages.

The portraits were created in several stages: in an initial meeting, Mats Staub met participants for a conversation lasting around an hour which was recorded only with a microphone. He subsequently shaped that audio recording into a story, editing out his own contributions and departing from the chronology of the conversation. He then played this edited version to the participant some three months later, and filmed them in portrait format, seated against a black background. At the end they could react to what they had heard and extracts from that shorter conversation conclude the portrait.

At almost every venue where 21 was presented, Mats Staub recorded conversations in advance; and in each city the search for participants was supported by the institution presenting the work. As a result, the long-term project kept expanding from one location to the next and over the years it became a gallery of the previous and the present century: some 200 portraits were created in German, Swiss German, English, French and Spanish in 26 locations in Europe, Africa and Australia. A selection is presented online.

In the installation the portraits are displayed on upright monitors and arranged chronologically by the year that is being recalled, and visitors can choose where they sit and which stories they want to follow on headphones. Each portrait can be accessed at the push of a button, but there are no fast forward or rewind options to navigate within the individual recording. The portraits last between six and 24 minutes and show an unedited recording of the person listening to their own story – their facial expressions range from smiles to tears, but their reactions remain open to interpretation: only at the end do the participants react to what they have heard with a few words.

For each presentation Mats Staub assembled a selection of videos specific to that location. The mobile scenography by Monika Schori initially consisted of 15 monitor supports and benches seating two people; from 2017 onwards a second set went on tour with 21 viewing positions; a version using VR goggles was devised for the presentation in the Congo in which the portraits could be selected by eye control. For Ruhrtriennale 2021 a complete edition was shown for the first time: it had a total duration of 45 hours and used 50 monitors, including at least one portrait for each year from 1939 to 2020. 

"I felt there was one artistic work at the Ruhrtriennale that connected to humanity–and it wasn’t in a theater. Over the past decade, the Swiss artist Mats Staub has conducted hundreds of interviews with individuals of various ages and backgrounds for 21–Memories of Growing Up, which has been installed in a turbine hall in Bochum. Spread over 50 different stations, the video interviews provide varied reflections on maturity, independence and happiness. The project feels like an archive of human strivings and the possibility for rebirth."
New York Times, 27.08.2021

"Listening Faces"
Judith Gerstenberg in conversation with Mats Staub. Ruhrtriennale Magazin 2021

"21 is insightful and poignant; there's something calming and touching about the humanity common to all the interviewees, whether discussing political activism during the Cold War or falling in love for the first time, there's the same sense of quiet, tender nostalgia flickering across their faces. It's why choosing to film the participants listening to their recollections, as opposed to actively describing them, is a genius touch. It seems that we're more similar than we think; no matter where we come from, the memories we hold closest to us as we age are ones of love, family and the early formations of identity."
The Skinny, 19.08.2019

"Watching these strangers grapple with their memories, and how to construct their own narratives, you think of the story you would tell: where were you when you turned 21? What kind of person were you? And which words would you use to describe that? At its most basic, the work questions the concept of adulthood, as it’s experienced around the world and across history, and how it’s changed over time. (…) I spent four hours in the exhibition, and I could have spent four more, it’s addictive."
The Guardian, 12.03.2018

"The art of human connection"
CityMag Adelaide, 15.02.2018

"This is the transcendent aspect of the project 21: it breaks the boundaries of race, class and culture and it allows people who have grown up in disparate parts of the world and sometimes in vastly different circumstances to feel a deep connection with another human being."
Passages, Nr 64

"Astonishing moments of direct emotion conveyed through facial expressions: with his numerous projects Mats Staub is developing a form of artistic anthropology that science cannot achieve. This fabulous work is worth visiting again and again. Definitely."
Der Standard, 18.05.2015