Klosterfrauen Frauenkloster

About this book

After the Schlehdorf monastery became too big for the aging Dominican sisters, they collectively decided to sell the building and move into a newly built extension. Artist Jutta Görlich, photographer Ulrike Myrzik, and cultural manager Ulrike Rose visited the Schlehdorf sisters and other female convents gripped by the process of change. In the book, they explore the present-day disappearance of these convents, photograph the transformations the institutions are undergoing, and carry out interviews with those who live there. The book not only reveals the paths that these shrinking communities chart when their dwellings become too large, but also what happens to the former monastery and the significance that spatial change can have for monastic coexistence. Without romanticizing its subject or focusing on monastic traditions, the book looks at contemporary ways of life in convents and the future of these centuries-old landmarks that continue to decisively shape our cultural landscape.