On Borrowed Time and other Updates

A bit news: My exhibition project ‘On Borrowed Time’ will be part of Foto Wien 2025! It will be shown at NeverTheSameRiver, my new exhibition space in the 1020 Vienna. Over the last week or so I have started experimenting and doing some background reading about plant dna, herbariums, mutations, seed banks and and… Really intriguing and humbling to see how many people are invested into understanding biodiversity better.

About ‘Borrowed Time’: Inspired by Johannes N. Bayer's study "Praterflora" (1869), I develop works using plants collected in the Prater that address the interfaces between nature, science, and art. To this end, I use the alternative photographic process "phytography," which actively incorporates plants into the image creation process. The phytogram, an analogue technique developed by Karel Doing in 2016 as part of his doctoral thesis in England, brings together various elements: cameraless photography through the direct contact of the plant with the paper, the plant's inherent process of photosynthesis, and environmentally friendly chemistry. The questions I aim to pose with this work are diverse and concern the fragility of biodiversity and the threat to human habitats posed by accelerating climate change, the position of analog processes in an energy-hungry, hyper-digitalized environment, and, last but not least, the value of photography as a scientific and artistic process.

Below is a first glance of ‘NeverTheSameRiver’, my studio and showcase space.

As part of the relocation to Vienna I will not only set up with my practice as an artist and creative producer. I will also take on the role of the custodian of the estate of Claudia P. who was an artist with a short but distinct career in the realms of concrete photography and conceptual art. As a distant relative who also happens to work in the arts it was decided that I should take on this responsibility and look after the archive and what work is still left in possession of the family.

The images below are from the group exhibition Liquid Now at Kitform in Bristol last November. They show my piece that I titled ‘never the sam river’ and signals to me also a new beginning The following is the text that I wrote about the piece:

To me photographs are like rivers that swell and change with each viewing. Whilst being looked at  they are constantly reconstituting themselves as reflective fragments of past moments within a present context. Harbouring near invisible triggers that wreak havoc with linearity, they liquify time and release a stream of fleeting thoughts and memories within the here and now.The images above are from the group exhibition Liquid Now at Kitform in Bristol last November. They show my piece that I titled ‘never the sam river’ and signals to me also a new beginning The following is the text that I wrote about the piece:

To me photographs are like rivers that swell and change with each viewing. Whilst being looked at  they are constantly reconstituting themselves as reflective fragments of past moments within a present context. Harbouring near invisible triggers that wreak havoc with linearity, they liquify time and release a stream of fleeting thoughts and memories within the here and now.

And last: I have been selected for an artist’s residency at the Salzamt in Linz in Austria this November. My plan for the stay is to engage with the the everyday life of Adalbert Stifter and start creating a new body of photography based work and a moving image.

I also used the time waiting for my removal stuff to come to produce a small publication titled ‘Ordinary Objects’. It shows a small selection of a series of work that I started during my residency in Gmünd in Kärnten where I explored what might distinguish art and non art object. I am afraid with no real conclusion once the premises that art is essential to life was set.