Traisen, She / Her
Research and photographic observations on the Traisen and Mühlbach
Eine Ausstellung von Regina Hügli
im Rahmen des Kunstparcours The Way of the Water
Tangente Festivalzentrum, Linzer Straße 16, Atelier 1
7.9. bis 5.10.2024
Mi-Sa 12-19 Uhr
What defines the Traisen and its industrial streams? What emerges in the current interplay of interactions between flowing water, groundwater, landscape, weather, people, infrastructure, flora and fauna?
The approximately 80-kilometre-long Lower Austrian river Traisen, which rises in the Limestone Alps and flows into the Danube, is highly regulated and intensively used. Among other things, the Traisen feeds two factory streams in the St. Pölten area and drives numerous turbines. In recent years, it has experienced new interventions in the form of renaturation projects.
On the trail of the hyperobject “Traisen”, Regina Hügli’s research materialises in a photographic contribution to this book. She deals with the visibility and invisibility of what constitutes the Traisen and its mill streams, and with how they are perceived, used and how the spaces they create are reshaped. The research is inspired by the concept of hydro-logic (according to Astrida Neimanis), which enables a new ontological understanding of bodies and community. “Traisen, She/Her” is based on photographic observations along the river and on conversations with people who live or work along the Traisen, use, transform or research her.
Die Schweizer Künstlerin Regina Hügli (1975, Oxford, UK) lebt in Wien und arbeitet sowohl als Fotografin für Auftragsarbeiten als auch als Künstlerin, Kuratorin und Organisatorin interdisziplinärer Projekte. Sie schloss 2002 ihr Fotografie-Studium an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ab, wo sie sich auf analoge und digitale fotografische Techniken und theoretische Ansätze zum Medium konzentrierte. Zudem studierte sie vergleichende Religionswissenschaft und Kunstgeschichte an den Universitäten in Bern und Zürich.