.COMpliance

I own a domain that nobody wants. gallery-weekend-berlin.com has been in my hands since 2024. I offered it to Gallery Weekend Berlin. Free of charge, no conditions. Instead of thanks came reservation. Questions about terms, about safeguards. A gift with no protocol for how to receive it.

I call this digital restitution. The term comes from the debate around looted art. Maybe that's too big a word for a domain. But the refusal felt exactly the same. Possession gets defended, even when it benefits no one.

Until the planned handover, the site stayed empty. No program, no advertising, just a countdown ticking toward the return.

I embedded the access code in a chip, hidden inside a notepad, painted gold, not real gold. My gold is only a claim too. Maybe that was the whole exercise: to see whose claim counts for more.

I published the entire correspondence. Every email, every reservation. Whoever reads it sees an institution unprepared for generosity.

The handover never happened. My follow-up messages went unanswered. The domain remains with me. The silence is the only answer I received.