To mark 100 years since Rathenau's assassination, the Jewish Country Houses project, together with urKultur, commissioned a new site-specific artwork to breathe new life into the walls at Schloss Freienwalde , which hints towards both the life once lived here and a possible future. The leading British German painter Sophie von Hellermann was invited to use the Schloss as a studio in which to paint scenes from Rathenau’s life in her characteristic expressive style, and to breathe new life into this sleeping beauty of a house by painting directly on its walls. This unique intervention complements redisplay of the existing Walter Rathenau Museum in Schloss Freienwalde; moreover, it promised to revive his legacy there and – perhaps – establish its importance as a site of German, Jewish and European memory.
