All means to new ideas @HS4

Open Studios at Hans-Schmidt-Straße 4
For this year’s open studios, I transformed my workspace at Hans-Schmidt-Straße 4 into a presentation space and created a new exhibition, featuring mostly recent works. This show continues the thread of my previous project at Kunstverein Eisenturm in Mainz, where I explore poetic installations that reflect on the relationship between people and their immediate environments.

In many ways, my practice functions like that of an amateur anthropologist—untrained, but deeply observant. I use the tools of art to investigate how we relate to our surroundings: not only in a physical sense, but also through social, cultural, and communicative structures. The more I develop this body of work, the clearer it becomes how this perspective has quietly shaped everything I’ve done. These new pieces bring that focus fully to the surface, drawing connections across past works and sharpening the direction of my practice.

For what it’s worth.

It’s just a dented cola can—only now it’s gold. It sits on the matte black surface of a small, perfectly square table I built, still letting go of its last drop of some unknown, neutral, white liquid. A tiny, ordinary moment, frozen.

I keep coming back to things like this. Little details most people walk past without a glance—yet once you really look, they open up. They can be funny, a bit sad, strangely beautiful. This piece is my way of holding onto one of those moments and giving it room to breathe.

The gold is a bit of a game. It’s reverent, but also tongue-in-cheek. It makes me wonder: is the beauty already there, or does it appear when we decide to notice it? At the same time, there’s a quiet nod to how we consume things—how quickly we move from wanting something to discarding it, how the last sip rarely matters as much as the first.

For me, this work lives in that in-between place—part tenderness, part irony—trying to see what’s worth holding onto before it’s gone.

Als Lange Weile Noch Eine Beschäftigung War

 Three small, silver-coloured ceramic birds sit on the floor. They’re not any particular species—just the familiar outline of “a bird” the way a child might draw one. They’re gathered together, but not interacting, each one quietly minding its own business.

Above them, in big, loose, handwritten silver letters, the wall reads: Als Langeweile noch ein Beschäftigung war — “When boredom was still an occupation.” The words are in German because this piece first appeared in Germany, but also because, somehow, the phrase feels heavier, slower, in that language.

Like much of my work, it began with noticing. These little birds came from the way I watch public spaces—small, unremarkable presences that seem to belong there without needing to explain themselves. There’s a kind of quiet humor in that—like they’re part of a scene that doesn’t realise it’s being watched.

Paired with the text, the piece drifts between poetry and play, between observation and suggestion. The silver makes the scene glint just enough to catch the eye, but not enough to hold it in place. What happens after that is left open—the work simply waits, letting each viewer decide whether to linger, to smile, or to move on.

The making of new ideas (series of framed drawings)

These four drawings are part of a much bigger series. The first ones came about while I was sketching for an earlier work, Some Other Memory (2019). They were quick, loose ideas—just part of the process back then.

A while later, I came across some of those early sketches again. That moment kicked off a new chain of work, which eventually became For What It’s Worth.