Ray, Rock, Rowan

Camera Austria’s exhibition space in the Eisernes Haus (Iron House) forms the backdrop for the project Hey Monte Schlacko, dear Slagorg (since 2024). In the contaminated, exploited landscape of a vacant site for mining ore, there are mosses and lichens interacting with other plants, regenerating the soils alongside rocks; echoing in the scenography is the exhaustion, resistance, and trauma of these anthropocentric geographies. This most recent work dialogues with Susanne Kriemann’s long-term research approach, which focuses on the vegetation of landscapes that uranium mining has left behind: the plants metabolizing these toxic soils bring color to the silk panels of Canopy canopy (since 2018); Wild Carrot, False Chamomile, Ox Tongue (Wilde Möhre, Falsche Kamille, Bitterkraut, since 2016) romp through heliogravures; the radioactive pitchblende (Pechblende, since 2015) exposes autoradiographs and photograms; and X-ray images show skeletons of plants like lupine, fern, and gorse bush (Lupin, fougère, genêt, since 2024). The “library for radioactive afterlife” (since 2015) offers publications with different narratives from the Atomic Age, and it expands Camera Austria’s library while also underscoring Susanne Kriemann’s book-making practice.

Scenography by Leia Walz, video work by Aleksander Komarov

The exhibition is accompanied by an English-language reader published by Edition Camera Austria, which brings together authors who offer a frame of reference for Susanne Kriemann’s work: Siobhan Angus, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Zippora Elders, Daisy Hildyard, Bhanu Kapil, Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou, Lisa Rosendahl. Book design: James Langdon.