o.T.
Ash
2024

o.T. is an untitled site-specific installation consisting of the ashes of burnt documents relating to a given exhibition, its space, or a financial supporter of the show.

It was originally conceived for Golden Hour Handshakes at Schloss Goldegg in Salzburg, curated by Hanna Besenhard and Nanna Kaiser. There, I used ashes from burned financial records of a local business that was involved in financing the exhibition. The business was owned by Sepp Schellhorn, an Austrian politician and later State Secretary for Deregulation. The documents were burned in a backyard after their 10-year retention period had expired. I collected the ashes and arranged them in the room in conversation with the architecture of the space, giving them almost figurative, dove- or angel-like shapes.

o.T. is a score rather than a finished work and has to be contextually adapted and newly produced for each exhibition in which it is shown.

In Golden Hour Handshakes, it was shown alongside a witch-mask of the local Perchten association, turned inside-out. The mask had a tooth missing, which probably broke off during one of their annual Perchtenläufe, a folkloric tradition, meant to drive out the evil spirits of winter. I casted a new tooth out of pewter and returned the mask with it after the show was done.