ARCHAEOLOGICAL NARRATIVES OF THE PRESENT

Ongoing series, Vienna, 2017–present
Photography, found fragments, and sculptural objects

“Ruins are half human artifact, half nature:
they are the human insofar as it is being reduced to nature.”
— Thomas Leddy, “Is There an Aesthetics of Ruins?” (2013)

 

Archaeological Narratives of the Present is an ongoing series developed from fragments found across the city of Vienna. Removed from their original surroundings, these remnants of construction, demolition, and urban transformation are photographed and presented as sculptural objects.

Isolated against neutral backgrounds, the fragments acquire the appearance of archaeological specimens. Their original functions and contexts remain uncertain, allowing physical characteristics—fractures, layers, textures, aggregates, erosion, and accumulated matter—to become the basis for possible narratives. Rather than reconstructing a verifiable past, the series asks what histories might be inferred from the material evidence of the present.

Situated between human artefact and geological formation, the objects complicate distinctions between construction and decay, intentional form and accidental transformation, culture and nature. The project approaches the contemporary city as an archaeological field in continuous formation, where ordinary debris can become a record of material processes, human activity, and urban time.

Initiated at studio das weisse haus, Vienna, Austria.