Scheu (2009)
The sculpture entitled "Scheu", best translated into English as shy or timid, addresses the visually handicapped. "Scheu" only works in Braille, the alphabet based on a system of raised dots that can be read by touch. In "Scheu", these dots are transformed into 3-dimensional orbs. As specified by the Braille system, each letter of the Roman alphabet is an arrangement of 6 dots, in this case of 6 orbs.
Big orbs resemble the actual "letters" of the alphabet, small orbs the spaces in between.

Basically one could now create any letter or word using this system, but for "Scheu" a different approach was chosen:
the goal was to find an expression that can be read from two sides, meaning also upon a change of position by 180°. For this only a few Braille letters proved to be suitable as not all of them give rise to another letter once turned by 180°.

Therefore, the first step was to identify letters I could use for my purposes. These turned out to be:

In the next step, words consisting of these letters were assembled, for example:
Aus, Ausschuss, Tausch, Austausch, Ausweis, Auto, Autor, Chor, Eis, Eiweiss, Eu, Euch, Euro, Maus, Maut, Meist, Mies, Moos Moor, Morsch, Most, Motor, Mus, muss, Mut, Ort, Rau, Sau, Rauch, Raum, Raus, Rausch, Reich, Reim, Reis, Rom, Rost, rot, Rum, Russ, Saum, Schaum, Schoss, Schrei, Schrott, Schrot, Schuss, Schutt and many more.

The final and most challenging step was then to find a word that would make sense from actually three points of view: 0°, 180° and in the sense of creating an object addressing issues of the visually handicapped.

I found the word "Scheu" to perfectly meet all of these criteria. Upon rotation by 180° "Scheu" is still "Scheu" as Sch becomes Eu and Eu becomes Sch.

The sculpture "Scheu" is meant to be explored by vision and more importantly by touch. It can therefore function as a meeting point for people with normal and impaired vision and as a means to overcome shyness and timidity on both sides.