The Austrian artist Michaela Schweighofer is the new invited artist at ResidenceSEA, Heraklion. She arrived on August 1st and will stay for a month to do research on the boundaries of different media and the connection between sculpture and video.
“When is a sculpture a sculpture, when is a prop a prop, when is it a backdrop, when is the backdrop an object and where can it be both sculpture and backdrop? What can the performative aspects of sculpture be? How can this be shown? What about the relationship of sculpture to prop, prop to film and video, video to performance and performance to sculpture?”
Questions, which Michaela will explore during her stay at ResidenceSEA. Additionally, she wants to get to know the community and the artists, the landscape and architecture of Crete and let it be a strong part of her research. Michaela says about this: “Within my last solo show “The company I keep” in the Gipsmuseum Graz, a plaster museum filled with replicas of ancient Greek sculptures, I dealt with the prop as a support system – a tree trunk holding up the arm of the Apollo, a long flowing dress to keep Athena upright. I liberated them from their servile position and created a series of objects which physically support them—a prop for a prop, a support for a support. I would like to use my time in Crete to research the boundaries of the prop and the sculpture especially in the realm of archaeological excavations sites and the Herakleion Archaeological Museum I can visit here.”
Michaela is from Graz, Austria, and she works primarily in sculpture although her practice also extends into photography, video and installation. She studied at theAcademy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. Previously she studied English, Psychology and Philosophy at the Karl-Franzens-Universität in Graz. She recently exhibited her work at MUMOK in Vienna, Galerie at the der HFBK in Hamburg andat the Gipsmuseum in Graz.
Michaela will present her research at ResidenceSEA on Thursday 28th of August 2014 at 22:00