Mahler Forum
for Music
and Society
für Musik
und Gesellschaft
— I, Nature
An artistic intervention by Nataša Sienčnik
Curated by Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein and section.a
Gustav-Mahler-Komponierhäuschen, Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt
As part of the 1st Mahler Forum for Music and Society in the summer of 2021 Nataša Sienčnik presented the artistic intervention — I, Nature, which, in conjunction with an artist’s book, is a poetic as well as pointed reflection on the appropriation of nature by man. With the voice of nature, the artist questions the way people deal with our living space without pointing a finger, she thematizes depictions of landscapes across art history, the surveying, and cartography of the world, the decorating of our living space with houseplants or the innumerable, constantly renewed photographs of nature. She focuses on geometric shapes, grids and structures that are already in nature and are adopted by humans in a variety of ways. (Text: Nora Leitgeb, Die Brücke)
Nataša Sienčnik, born 1984, is a media artist and designer mapping different phenomena of being here, there and elsewhere, working on the inter-section of various disciplines and territories. After her studies at the University of Applied Art Vienna (Transmedia Art), Kingston University in London (Communication Design) and Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (Networked Media), she is currently based in Vienna and Carinthia.
Her artistic research lies in a hybrid field with ephemeral borders, which questions the foundation of any object and its inclusion within any form of artistic category. Her works are heterogeneous in terms of technique, shape and dimension, and include theoretical investigations, photography, videos, and the modification of real objects and public installation that often involve the audience in a direct way. In the face of such formal complexity, the common denominator is the artist’s attention on the present time, in order to investigate its social, political, and cultural issues. (Text: Michela Lupieri)