with Linda Bournane Engelberth
on view April 24 – May 26, 2018
Fotogalerie Wien
Vienna, Austria
Linda Bournane Engelberth’s project “Wind, Sand and Stars” will be included in the exhibition “Human,” on view at Fotogalerie Wien in Vienna Austria from April 24 – May 26, 2018. The exhibition also includes works by Amina Handke, Roland Icking, Simon Lehner, Christiane Peschek and Anna Vasof. An opening reception will be held on Monday, 23 April at 7 PM.
About “Wind, Sand and Stars”:
In this photographic work-in-progress project, the artist searches for her own family roots. She grew up in Norway with her Norwegian mother and did not get to know her Algerian father or his family for a long time. It was only as an adult that she first visited him and her wider family in Algeria. When her Berber grandmother celebrated her 100th birthday, she wrote her a letter asking her not to forget her father’s homeland. For Bournane Engelberth this project is an attempt as a Western-oriented woman to trace her identity by examining the foreignness that comprises half of her bloodline. While trying to find connections she walked through the streets of Algiers as a foreigner with the feeling of being an outsider. She documented everything – from the city to the lives of her relatives. She was interested in every detail of Algiers: traffic signs in Arabic, a cactus growing through a fence, the people in the streets – her first steps in a culture to which she feels drawn, as her own, but in which she still remains a foreigner.
About “Human”:
The artists represented in the Human exhibition are interested in observing and analyzing the subject, its associated community and superordinate social constructions. The concern is an engagement with identity or personality structure whether in connection with ethnic and geographical affiliation, class, culture, history or prescribed role images. On the one hand, the point of departure is society and its effects and influences on the lives and personalities of its members. On the other, there are the artists with their individual biographies who examine their direct surroundings, usually with an empathetic approach and in the process also address their own fears, vulnerabilities and insecurities as well as the need for closeness and happiness. At times intimate glimpses into private aspects of life, personal histories, memorial work memory/reminiscence and life situations are made possible. Other artists offer unusual ways of seeing reality through humorous or bizarre narratives as well as staged performances or role games that are situated between authenticity and fiction. These underline the absurdity of everyday life and thus of human existence.
