Ton Matton

According to legend, in the latter half of the 18th century Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potyomkin had fake villages erected along the route in New Russia to be inspected by Empress Catherine II, in order to cover up the true appearance of the region.

Ton Matton, together with artists and residents, built  a similar fake street in Wittenburg, a rather desolate village in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Entrepreneurs, house owners and neighbours revamped the dilapidated façades with paintbrushes and glue in workshops, demonstrating new possibilities such as the drive-through cinema, the complaint chorus or the knitted façade. It is not the investors in search of 7% interest yield that make a town, but the people who live there.