A VISIT

4th Austrian Triennial of Photography, Graz 2002/2003

With the participation of senior residents at the Volkshilfe retirement home in Graz: Mr. Karusa, Mr. Gross, Mrs. Murke, and others.

This site-specific participatory project engaged three senior residents of a retirement home to narrate and reflect their life stories based on which a performative photographic work was conceptualized, staged and mediated. Installed in the entrance and visitor area of the retirement home, and embedded within locally prominent Triennial exhibition, the project was conceived as a social plastic. 

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My collaborators in this project were three residents of the Volkshilfe retirement home in Krottendorf street 14 in Graz, where I spent one week in September 2002: Mr. Karusa, Mr. Gross and Mrs. Murke, at respectively 94, 89 and 81 years of age at the time. Over the course of that week, in individual as well as group meetings, the three protagonists exchanged stories and experiences by narrating their biographies. The next step was a group discussion, whereby we selected the most significant professional and private moments of their lives. After that, an object to represent each of those experiences was chosen in order to create a set for a group photo of the three protagonists. On the photo, all of the selected objects were clearly visible: a piano, a hairbrush, a toy train, a soldier’s cap, a letter… The objects, which referenced personal experiences, also outlined important historical events of the 20th century: National Socialists coming to power, WW2, military duty, poverty, exile, etc.

The photo was, and still is, exhibited in the cafeteria and reception area of the retirement home, above the piano, which Mr. Karusa was known to play in the late afternoons. He started playing piano in his 80s; and this very story about how and why he had his first concert at the age of 90 is one of the stories anchored in the photograph. The objects related to individual stories were meant to function as reminders and triggers for further conversations with the visitors of the Austrian Triennial of Photography as well as among the residents of the retirement home themselves. In the two months of the Triennial exhibition, we organized get-togethers so that other senior residents could exchange their experiences.

Aside from using participatory strategies and methods in order to empower the three protagonists, my intentions with this project were directed towards social plastic. I wanted to use the organizational infrastructure of the Austrian Triennial of Photography, locally very prominent cultural event, to encourage visitors to it to come and visit the retirement home as well and meet its elderly residents. My intervention was namely one of the outposts of the Triennial located outside the city center. Visitors were invited to ride on tram no. 7 to the last stop and were then given a free taxi ride to the project site i.e. to the retirement home. Even though not many people visited the home, approx. 50 in total, this was already significant as visitors rarely go there. Even family members do not come very often, because no one has any time, as the residents were often heard to remark.

The work was acquired by the city of Graz and should still be exhibited in situ.

The picture of the three protagonists builds on the portraiture of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The woman and the three men, each with a series of attributes from their private and professional lives, emerge from the anonymity of an old people’s home. The personalities develop filtered contours from long conversations, becoming representative of the situation of members of the many communities existing and functioning at the margin´s society: Sightseeing as an inverted motif, looking in from the outside, representing a change in perspective. (Note on the project by the curatorial team 4th Austrian Triennial of Photography)

RELATED 
Work is/should still be on view in Seniorenwohnheim der Volkshilfe, Krottendorfstraße 14, 8052 Graz: Offsite Graz, Fototriennale

CREDITS 
Curatorial team Austrian Triennial of Photography: Sandra Abrams, Werner Fenz Publication: Fenz, Werner (ed.): Sightseeing: 4th Austrian Triennial of Photography, Fotohof Edition Graz 2002. Supported by: Office of the Federal Chancellor/Department of the Art, the City of Graz. Photos: Kristina Leko.

GENRE&FORMATS 
Project: participatory-documentary art project; community project; project with specific social groups; oral history project; temporary intervention in social institution; social plastic. Artwork/s and artifacts: workshops; photograph; get-together events.

 

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