Living Images

Living Images: following animalness in [contemporary] zoological architectures

My current work deals with architecture in zoological gardens. While Natural History Museums display mostly “static“ images , e.g. taxidermied animals and grouped objects in forms of “dioramas“zoological gardens produce so-called “living“ images. This factor brings the zoo in structural proximity to film and audio-visual media. My working thesis is that architectures in zoos function as “frames“ for the animals confined. Directing the camera lense on that architecture produces another frame by partializing it into an image, thereby framing the animals twice („doppelt gerahmt“). This project is ongoing and has an open and evolving form, meaning that the videos shown in the exhibitions do not work for themselves, but rather form chapters in my engagement with animals and architecture built for them.

Katharina Swoboda, born 1984, Graz, AT. Lives and works between Hamburg, Vienna and Graz. Her work is predominantly video-based but she also works in photography, installation art and performance art, as well. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and has been a PhD student at the transdiciplinary doctorate programme at University of Fine Arts of Hamburg since 2014.

Katharina's videos have been internationally shown in selected venues in Vienna, Houston, Panamá, London, Budapest and Hamburg. She has received several scholarships,  e.g from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture, and has participated in the KAMOV City of Rijeka residency in Croatia and the Nida Art Colony in Lithuania.