Something traced and diverging
HD Video, color, sound, 7min, 2022
What can objects of the past tell us when their owners can no longer speak about them?
The starting point for Katharina Aigner's video work are four objects found in the Ravensbrück memorial: a handkerchief, a ring made of wire, a broken comb, a small cloth heart. Presumably having been manufactured in the women's concentration camp, there is little more known about their origin and the meaning they held for their owners. Aigner imagines an archive of emotions, entanglements, and queer desire. As digital artefacts, she translates the objects into an undefined space that is neither limited by time nor place. Relationships of proximity and distance are implied, searching movements suggested.
Made under constant threat of life and in the face of existential deprivation, they are signs of resilience. While they testify to loss and absence, they also embody the resistance and self-determination of their keepers. By placing the objects in new constellations, Aigner creates points of contact to propel their potential in diverse directions and claim space in a collective memory.
Concept/Edit: Katharina Aigner
Animation: Manuel Maxl
Poem: Katharina Aigner, Kelly Ann Gardener
Sound design: Katrin Euler
Thanks to Bernadette Anzengruber, Juliane Bischoff, Kelly Ann Gardener, Christina Jauernik
Special thanks to Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
With friendly support by Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Land Salzburg, nsdoku Munich
What can objects of the past tell us when their owners can no longer speak about them?
The starting point for Katharina Aigner's video work are four objects found in the Ravensbrück memorial: a handkerchief, a ring made of wire, a broken comb, a small cloth heart. Presumably having been manufactured in the women's concentration camp, there is little more known about their origin and the meaning they held for their owners. Aigner imagines an archive of emotions, entanglements, and queer desire. As digital artefacts, she translates the objects into an undefined space that is neither limited by time nor place. Relationships of proximity and distance are implied, searching movements suggested.
Made under constant threat of life and in the face of existential deprivation, they are signs of resilience. While they testify to loss and absence, they also embody the resistance and self-determination of their keepers. By placing the objects in new constellations, Aigner creates points of contact to propel their potential in diverse directions and claim space in a collective memory.
Concept/Edit: Katharina Aigner
Animation: Manuel Maxl
Poem: Katharina Aigner, Kelly Ann Gardener
Sound design: Katrin Euler
Thanks to Bernadette Anzengruber, Juliane Bischoff, Kelly Ann Gardener, Christina Jauernik
Special thanks to Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
With friendly support by Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Land Salzburg, nsdoku Munich
