Tuesday 14 March
The House of Stories
http://www.linz09.at/en/projekt-2205346/haus_der_geschichten.html
Georgina took us to visit this Linz 09 project space on Pfarr Platz, just behind the main square in Linz. It is a project organised by Linz 09, and invites artists to respond to the rooms of this house, which has not been lived in for many years.
A knitted string winds up the central staircase leading you to rooms that have been inhabited by artists and their works. Each installation is site specific and tells a story. Whether autobiographical (as in the work by Paul Kranzler and Maggie Cardelus which uses photographs of families in two different ways), or fictional (in the room where book seller Alex Stelzer has provided space for you to read ‘House of Leaves' a novel by Mark Z. Danielewski, available in multiple languages)
On arriving at the second floor the knitted string brings you into a room of woolly walls. Here the freundinnen der kunst have set up a project where every Friday afternoon, visitors and artists resident in the house are invited to knit -until the walls of the flat are completely covered in knitting. On our arrival, one room was cosily shrouded with complete walls of knitting, with extra knitted feelers escaping through the windows and down the frontage of the building.
On returning to the ground floor we were met by Claudia Czimek, an artist who is in residence at the House of stories, and it is imperative that I tell you "Es ist noch nicht fertig!" (it isn't finished yet!). This ground floor space was previously used as a travel agents – hence the garish posters on the walls with psychedelic tulips and acidic green grass. Claudia, who also goes by the pseuodonym Madame Bricolage, is transforming this former travel agency into a terminal and miniature 40 square metre world made up of travel destinations. She is creating fantastical landscapes, creatures and places to explore in this small room, so that you can feel as though you have been on holiday, without ever having left the room.
Claudia is accepting souvenirs from across the world to incorporate into her installation. Cecilia Kinnear created an installation for the Liverpool International Artists exhibition using 2008 special edition cans of Scouse Stew (see http://www.independentsbiennial.org/2008artists/464-100scouse). As a gift to Claudia, Cecilia has left one of these cans at the House of stories, so you too can visit a little bit of Liverpool when you travel to Linz.
