This installation in and on the so-called “Absturzwand” (fall wall)was created as part of the 8th Water Biennale 2023/24.
North of Fürstenfeld in the so-called beech forest a prominent line of soul erosion is located alongside the river Feistritz. This areal has been the location settlements for thousands of years until the city of Fürstenfeld was built here.
“When looking at the walls of the great fall today, one finds clear signs of those visitors, who engraved themselves in the soil. Especially adolescent hikers or couples, managing the difficult walk, left their mark on the earth. These signs are witnesses of times past, some made in the last century, when facebook and apps – volatile carriers of emotion – did not exist jet!” (quote Aspäck, 2019, Absturz bei Altenmarkt, Versuch einer geomorphologischen Zuordnung)
The project RE-SUBLIMAT – Arbeit am Abfall by Alfred Graf provides artistic interventions on fragile earth walls alongside the river Feistritz and at economic locations of erosion in the city. He re-condensed loose sediment from the river to metaphoric forms.
As an extension of the pre-existing engraved private statements, Graf leaves the natural cycle and presents his projects in abandoned socio-economic sights of erosion, like empty business premises.
In the city and in shopping malls “stranded bodies” are poured out of the sediments and refill economic sink holes (vacant premises).
Günther Pedrotti
