2023-ongoing

Funded by
Kunstraum Steiermark, scholarship by the Province of Styria (AT), 2023-2024 The Austrian Federal Chancellery (AT)

I grew up in the 1980s in the brutalist “Terrassenhaussiedlung” (terraced housing estate) in Graz planned by the architects Werkgruppe Graz. In the middle of the four estate blocks is "Das Zentrum", which is run on a voluntary basis by the estate's self-governing interest group (IG) and where I spent a lot of time in the library or at events. The idea of housing with its many communal areas influenced me as a child and helped shape my artistic interest in urban development and housing.

My new work Im Zentrum (working title) is part of a long-term project and deepens my artistic examination of the housing estate in Graz. I am interested in the question of how the (real) utopian architecture of the 1960s is used today and whether the architects' vision has been realized by the residents.
I will photographically juxtapose my family's personal stories with the changes to the site. The aim of the project is to create an artistic photographic work from current photos and private archive images that can be presented both in exhibitions and in book form.

As part of the long-term project, I am interested in the directions in which similar housing projects in other countries, such as Split 3 in Split, Croatia (started in 2021 with the title Of Trees and Cars) have developed due to the respective political situation. What are the ways of living and dealing with the buildings today under the different political conditions in the respective countries? Which generation of residents lives in the apartments today and what issues concern them?