On the 6th of Nov 2015 I talk about my work as part of the CALAMITA/À workshop. For the full program, informations about the participants and the locality, please visit the CALAMITA/À workshop page.

“The CALAMITA/À project is a tool for investigating a territory which, through organized research, wishes to explore the changes in progress, generate questions, reveal critical points and attract interest and awareness concerning a crucial place that is still being defined. Territorial morphology, orography, infrastructure, architecture and social context are all elements for broadening the analysis. Art, sociology, urbanism and photography contribute to the definition of the project through an open, multidisciplinary approach. This plurality of visions is aimed at transforming the territory in question into a laboratory and space for privileged observation.” (text: CALAMITA/À web page)

Still Hunt is now online. The series was realised during the Serre Salentine Residency in South Italy in August 2015 and is part of Bitume Photofest, Gallipoli, Italy. The complete work and a text can be found here: Still Hunt

Installation view, Bitume Photofest, outdoor exhibition, Gallipoli, Italy, September 2015.

My new series I Was Born In a Country That Doesn‘t Exist Anymore is part of Bitume Photofest, Gallipoli, Italy.

Location: Gallipoli (Le), Italy
Preview: 19th Sept from 5pm
Exhibition continues: 20th Sept – 27th Sept 2015

Participating artists: Fabrizio ALBERTINI (IT) / Gianpaolo ARENA (IT) / Ekaterina ANOKHINA (RUS) / Francesca BELLINO (IT) / Luca CASONATO (IT) / Enrico DI NARDO (IT) / COLLETTIVO DOMINO (IT) / Francesca FIORELLA (IT) / Lucas FOGLIA (USA) / Jillian FREYER (USA) / Fernando GALLEGOS (MEX) / Robert HERMAN (USA) / Martina MAFFINI (IT) / Eugenia MAXIMOVA (BG) / NASTY NASTY (IT) / Marita PAPPA (GR) / Iacopo PASQUI (IT) / Aminta PIERRI (IT) / Niccolò RASTRELLI (IT) / Arianna SANESI (IT) / Thomas SAUVIN (F) / Gregg SEGAL (USA) / Mika SPERLING (GER) / Alnis STAKLE (LV) / Jan STRADTMANN (GER) / Clara WILDBERGER (AT) / Daan ZUIJDERWIJ/Maaike VERGOUWE (NL)

I Was Born In a Country That Doesn‘t Exist Anymore, 2015, series of 28 photographs (incl. found footage and reproductions), various dimensions. Ongoing research.

The series „I was born In a Country That Doesn’t Exist Anymore“ is a visual account of the state of affairs of the south of Italy. Consisting of photographies as well as found footage, the narrative builds up on the connection of recurring images and references that revolve around the Cimitero Monumentale, a cemetery in Parabita in the region of Lecce. Planned and designed by the architects Alessandro Anselmi and Paola Chiatante, the cemetery was inaugurated in 1982 when its dilapidation was concurrent to its initial operation. Today, 33 years after its implementation, parts of the cemetery are in danger of collapsing and no longer open to the public. It is unclear whether this decay is an effect of a conscious decision or whether it is due to negligence. However, these two poles reveal the collision of modern, respectively postmodern promises and traditional tendencies in Italian culture.

I’ve been selected for the Serre Salentine Residency, held in Matino (LE), Italy in August 2015. The produced work will be presented at Bitume Photofest in Gallipoli in September 2015. The residency is supervised by Gianpaolo Arena. Attached some drafts focusing on the area.

Participating artists in the residency are: Fabrizio Albertini (IT) / Luca Casonato (IT) / Marita Pappa (GR) / Iacopo Pasqui (IT) / Arianna Sanesi (IT) / Mika Sperling (GER) / Jan Stradtmann (GER)

“[…] this year’s theme will be Rural Layers. The festival will serve as a context to investigate the shifts in the contemporary landscape, its identities and its anthropological issues. Layers gather by dichotomies and oppositions: balances and imbalances of the contemporary city, presence and resistance of the rural scene, surfacing of hidden stories and accumulation of new ones.” (text: Bitume Photofest web page)

Commissioned work for the IBA Thuringia about the city of Gera is now published in the IBA-Magazine. The work is a collaboration with Bertram Haude. Design by Panatom.

The International Building Exhibition (IBA) […] is an exceptional, internationally acclaimed instrument of planning and building culture. […] This so-called “temporary state of exception” provides the opportunity to model complex dynamic social processes in their dimension within building and space in urban and rural areas. […] The International Building Exhibition is not an exhibition as usual. For IBA Thuringia, exhibiting means continuously communicating and articulating its program, projects, and process. […] IBA Thuringia is focussed on two huge challenges and how they impact building culture and landscape: energy transformation and demographic change. (text: IBA Thuringia web page)

The nightly climbing of university buildings in Cambridge is an illegal “tradition” that dates from the 1930ies. The most prominent building of these nightly endeavors is King’s College Chapel that in 2015 celebrates the 500th anniversary. Since today Ostkreuz Agency features my series the “Night Climbers of Cambridge”. (screenshot: Ostkreuz website)

My series Inside ATOMS FOR PEACE is part of the exhibition ‚united nations extended — The Vienna Dialog‘. It will be the first time that the complete series is presented in Vienna.

Location: freiraum quartier21 INTERNATIONAL
MuseumsQuartier Wien, Museumsplatz 1, A-1070 Vienna
Preview: 12th March from 7pm
Exhibition dates: 13th March – 10th May 2015, Tue – Sun, 1pm – 8pm

Participating artists: Marina Abramović  (SRB/USA) / Abbas Akhavan (CAN) / Alfred Banze (GER) / Vitshois M. Bondo (COD) / Sophie Calle (FRA) / Sibylle Hofter (GER) / Alfredo Jaar (USA) / Janina Janke (GER) / Maurice de Martin (GER) / Khaled Jarrar (PSE) / Sven Kalden (GER) / Thomas Locher (GER) / Goshka Macuga (POL) / Josef Ramaseder (AUT) / Kofi Setorji (GHA) / Ivar Smedstadt (NOR) / Jan Stradtmann (GER) / Tanya von Barnau Sythoff (NDL) / Guy Wouete (CMR) / Zentrum für politische Schönheit (GER)

“The exhibition ‚united nations extended — The Vienna Dialog’ engages with the controversy between art and politics, using the United Nations as an example. Alongside critical statements by contemporary artists, the exhibition also shows poetic and documentary works that present a broad survey of artistic positions since the 1990s. Compiled by the curators Signe Theill and Peter Winkels at freiraum quartier21 INTERNATIONAL in the MuseumsQuartier Wien, the exhibition engages with figurative and symbolic political acts.

The policy issues that the artists focus their attention on range from the Palestine Conflict, via the Iraq War, the genocide in Rwanda, the civil war in Bosnia, and the plight of refugees on the borders of the EU, to the connections between the personal and politics in the context of the UN. The earliest works stem from the 1990s, the most recent have been specially completed for the exhibition and are being shown for the first time.

Participating artists include: The Center for Political Beauty (GER), who caused a political scandal last year during the celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall with their “Erster Europäischer Mauerfall”; Goshka Macuga’s (POL), whose multifaceted installation “The Nature of the Beast” alludes to the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and his speech on the alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; Sophie Calle (FRA) has a far more intimate and personal background to her happening “Prenez soin de vous”, completed in 2004, which includes the reading aloud by 107 women of an Email from Calle’s ex-boyfriend ending their relationship.

The history of the United Nations is also the history of a special relationship with art. The global organization has been collecting art, commissioning artists in the UN cities, and receiving artworks as diplomatic gifts from the outset. The UNO City in Vienna also has a significant collection of Austrian artists’ work donated in the early-1970s by the Republic of Austria. On the 60th anniversary of Austria’s membership of the United Nations, artists such as Jan Stradtmann (GER), Maurice de Martin (GER), and Janina Janke (GER) present the results of their research at the Vienna International Center. The photographs by Stradtmann show the cool elegance of the building’s interior, while the project “UN.KNOWN SPACES” by artist duo Janke/de Martin directs attention to the people who work for the United Nations, with interviews, videos and other documentary material compiled in Vienna, Nairobi and New York. The Berlin artist Alfred Banze (GER) traveled around the world with a copy of the mural by Per Krohg in the UN Security Council, the first artwork completed for the United Nations. He brings numerous videos to Vienna of this international workshop tour, lending a hearing to a vast range of voices, both with contemporary interpretations of the mural as well as on the vision of the United Nations.

Also on show are new works specially created for the exhibition by the quartier21/MQ Artists-in- Residence, among others by Sibylle Hofter (GER), who has installed a temporary local office for her exceptional photo agency, Schwimmer, in the exhibition space, or Guy Wouete (CMR), who has produced new photos as well as videos in Vienna. An extensive supplementary program accompanies the exhibition and provides a deeper insight into the art that surrounds the United Nations. From the first gift for the United Nations Security Council Chamber to an introduction to the International Academy of Art Palestine, lectures, screenings and artists discussions are geared to promote a transdisciplinary dialogue.” (text: MuseumsQuartier Wien)