unlesbar

«unlesbar» is a special exhibition with 42 documents from the Swiss Literary Archive that are barely legible, distorted, encrypted, blacked out or crossed out. It asks what happens when we cannot read characters straight away: the illegible irritates, but also awakens curiosity and the allure of decipherment. Each document carries a riddle waiting to be solved, while at the same time developing a visual aesthetic of its own. The exhibition is a journey through time and space, from ancient writing systems via graphic design and unreadable classics to the whirl of signs in today's fast-moving present.