52 Sinnbilder

"52 Symbols" leads to a surprising encounter with the heavenly imagery of the pilgrimage church of Hergiswald near Kriens at the foot of Mount Pilatus, through words and images. Heinz Stalder brings the simple and abstract images from the mid-17th century to life in today's context. In the summer of 2006, theater director Louis Naef was looking for an author for his theater procession "Menetekel," inspired by a Corpus Christi play by Calderón, and found the well-known writer Heinz Stalder for this purpose. Stalder immersed himself in the "heavenly imagery" of Hergiswald, which features over 300 emblems. It soon became clear to him that he was facing a "book of nature," where all the depicted figures and objects point beyond themselves and can signify something fundamentally different than the evident veneration of Mary. Stalder has selected 52 images, one for each week of the year.