With her artistic oeuvre and curatorial practice, Katrin Hornek playfully engages with the strange paradoxes of living in the age of the Anthropocene, that is, the new geologic epoch where the effects of capitalism, colonialism, and extractivism are written into the body of the earth. She asserts a more complex understanding of the entwinement of so-called nature and culture that recognizes that our bodies and cultures are substantially and spiritually connected with other creatures and the elements that make up our world.

Katrin Hornek, born in *1983, studied performative art and sculpture in Vienna and Copenhagen. She is a member of the Anthropocene Commons network and teaches at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Department of Site-Specific Art). Recent exhibitions at Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano (2022), Kunstraum Lakeside, Klagenfurt (2021), Riga Biennale (2020), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2019). Awarded the Msgr. Otto Mauer Prize (2021).

Katrin Klingan is a literary scholar, curator and producer of art and cultural projects. She has been a curator at ERSTE Foundation in Vienna since May 2023. The focus of her curatorial work at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2011–2022) was the design of multi-year research projects between the arts, sciences and social actors that address the interdependence between human culture, the natural environment and global technologies as well as structures of inequality and asymmetrical power relations. Previously, she was the artistic director of relations (2002–2010), an international arts and culture programme initiated by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, as well as programming dramaturge at the Wiener Festwochen (1998–2001).

The publication accompanying the exhibition will be presented as part of the talk. In addition to numerous exhibition views, it contains an image spread compiled by Katrin Hornek and text contributions by Anne Faucheret and Brian Holmes. The publication will be available after the talk. 

The immersive live installation testing grounds was created in close collaboration with Karin Pauer, Sabina Holzer and Zosia Hołubowska - the three artists will also be present.

(in German)

An event by the Friends of the Secession