Published by Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia, Bamberg
Editor: Nora-Eugenie Gomringer
Author: Jan Koneffke
Proofreading: Stephanie Weiß & Wiebke Kana
Production: Reimar Limmer, Embargo Grafik
The Villa Concordia Artists’ House in Bamberg – an institution of the Free State of Bavaria – is housed in a building with remarkable history. Between 1716 and 1721, the citizen Johann Ignaz Tobias Böttinger ordered its construction as a “water palace” on the banks of the Regnitz river. He had previously commissioned a richly ornamented house nearby, on Judenstraße, but that building served primarily as a venue for receiving clients. He desired a stately private residence solely for himself and his family – a symbol and expression of civic pride.
The author Jan Koneffke („Die Tsantsa-Memoiren“) and I were commissioned by the institution to recount the building’s history in the form of a comic – specifically, in a style of graphic novels. My role was to translate Jan Koneffke’s concept into a sequential narrative, a comic story, while incorporating his textual suggestions and ideas regarding dialogue and plot progression; in essence, my task was to provide a visual stage for the story as he had envisioned it.
In addition to the artwork – which was influenced by extensive research, archival too, into the building – I was responsible for typesetting, layout, final print data preparation, and, to some extent, the textual work itself (specifically, translating some conceptual ideas into comic-fitting dialogue).
Given that the Artists’ House, as a residency, hosts fellows from both Germany and abroad every year, the graphic novel includes translations of the narrative into Turkish and English. It is, therefore, a trilingual publication, as the original German version of the comic story is also included within its pages. Furthermore, the project required depicting the fellows of the current cohort through individual portraits featured within the work.
The graphic novel is available directly from the Artists’ House (Concordiastraße 28, Bamberg) free of charge.
