2024
45 b/w images, each 30x40cm, framed
Wallpaper, 300x600cm

Funded by 
KOER Niederösterreich

Exhibition design
in collaboration with Fernando Gallegos

Research
with the support of  Robert Hanel and Gerardo Montes de Oca Valadez 

Exhibition views
Julia Gaisbacher

Julia Gaisbacher's photographs are a special look at the village of Weikendorf. The artist, who focuses on architecture-related themes in her work, has explored the transformation of the town center over the past decades.

Historical images from the Weikendorf archive, extensive conversations and extensive walks through the community form the starting point for the question of how the various changes can be captured in the form of snapshots. Gaisbacher's photographs for Weikendorf are a successful mixture of documentation and a very specific artistic view, which, as framed moments, tell us a lot about temporality and change.

Please find images from the exhibition opening here

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?

Of Trees and Cars

2021 - work in progress

Funded by the AIR program from the Province of Styria, in collaboration with Motel Trogir association, 2021 & 2023

Of Trees and Cars deals with the Trstenik district within Split 3 in Split/Croatia and the change of its public and communal spaces over the last decades.

The work focuses on the generously laid out open spaces between the blocks of houses, which were intended as regeneration areas in the original development plan. Due to political changes from 1991 onwards, these formerly nationalised areas were returned to the original owners and are thus no longer part of the adjacent housing blocks. The privatisation resulted in neglected open spaces, new buildings and, above all, car parks that were not intended to be there and destroyed the original structure of the housing estates.

At the centre of the work is a small park that was planted in 2009/2010 by the residents with 55 trees (today there are still 30) to counteract the spread of illegal parking spaces and real estate speculation and to offer the children from the neighbourhood a small green oasis with a clean stream, benches and a swing.


The work is a continuation of the piece
Mapping Split 3