ROMANA HAGYO
&
SILKE MAIER-GAMAUF
“Take it
Leave it.”
#BODY #COMMONS #GENDER #INSTALLATION #PHOTOGRAPHY #SPACE
BIO. Romana Hagyo and Silke Maier-Gamauf have been working in shared authorship since 2014 on artistic projects that focus on the relationship between space and gender *. The projects include staged photography, room installations, workshops, and city tours. Between 2018 and 2020 they presented their projects in Architekturforum Oberösterreich, Notgalerie Vienna, Künstlerhaus Friese Hamburg and in Mz* Balthazar’s Vienna. In 2019 they received the Gabriele-Heidecker-Award of the city of Linz. In 2020 the artistic research: Romana Hagyo in künstlerischer Zusammenarbeit mit Silke Maier-Gamauf: Über das Wohnen im Bilde sein, was published (Passagen Verlag Vienna).
Photos: © Romana Hagyo & Silke Maier-Gamauf
Audiowalk Seestadt (2020 AT)
Installation, photography
he installation "Audiowalk Seestadt" had been part of "Kunstland Nord" (2019), a public art project in the urban expansion area Aspern in Vienna (Austria). The club chairman of the Liberal Party Austria (a far right party) posted on his FB-page on 26.6.2019 a video that shows him during the dismantling of one of the fictitious street signs that were part of the installation Audiowalk Seestadt (wurm in: Der Standard.at from 27.6.2019). He described the dismantling as “an act of civil disobedience, which is also an art event”. This disassembly of an artwork has a dangerous role model effect of “self-justice”, Not only on the occasion of this incident, but also in view of the frequent reports of hatred in social media the question arises: In which society do we want to live? The documentation of the fictious street signs and the dismantling has been shown in an installation in Gallery Forum (Zagreb)
In Hülle und Fülle (2020)
Installation, photography
The project deals in a playful way with the connotation of clothing and gender-related conventions. Gender identities can be created or questioned through clothing. In this way, the relationship between body, clothing and space is made the subject. The German phrase “in Hülle und Fülle“ signifies „enough and to share”, literally translated “in shape and abundance”. The term “shell” is being associated with clothing. The association of bodies and "abundance" is multifaceted. Abundance describes in this photo series the numerous presence of ascriptions and readings of bodies, which are often gender connotated and according to social standards. The photographic series stages serve as the basis for spatial installations that ironically reflect the title of the work.
Abrieb und Lagenlook (2020)
Installation, photography
Abrieb und Lagenlook focuses on gender and culturally encoded categorizations of the human body through a queer lens. It connects this perspective with the relation to our bodies and our clothes. Bodies here function as sites for negotiation, appropriation, labeling, where new experiments, different viewpoints and ambiguities can emerge. The title addresses the endlessness of this endeavor with some subtle sense of humor. During photographic interventions in public space the artists wear clothes that completely cover them, that are twisted and entangled. Through re-shaping, developing and moving, the audience’s familiar perception and observation of a body is challenged, which enforces a blunt uncertainty upon the viewer. This art piece wants to be read as an ironic exploration into the body’s articulation through clothing and plays with form, deformation and the monstrous.