Stephan Mörsch

Gaza appears as a field of ruins today and was internationally perceived as an “open-air concentration camp” long before Israel’s wholesale assault. Stephan Mörsch challenges this image with models of the surf clubs on the enclave’s beaches. Based on visual research, he painstakingly recreated one of the many improvised buildings in 2013, including a Pepsi advertisement used to shield the club from the watchful eyes of Hamas. The structure thus also points to the processes of secularization and gentrification underway despite Hamas’s rule. After the destruction of the region, Mörsch has revisited the surf club, reconstructing two of its neighbors.

Stephan Mörsch (1974, Aachen, Germany) is an artist whose installations reflect on social and political aspects of architecture and the built environment. Institutions that have presented his work in solo and group exhibitions include MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (2024); Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt (2023); Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren (2022); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2021); Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2014); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2013); Marta Herford (2010); and Ludwig Forum Aachen (2008). Mörsch lives in Berlin.