Valerie Stahl von Stromberg
16 Jan - 05 Mar 2016
© Valerie Stahl von Stromberg
"Kos view to Bodrum, the sea between here and there is a brutalist surface. October 22 2015”, 2015/2016
archival light jet print, Alu-Dibond, 20,5 x 33 cm, Ed. 1/5 + 1AP
Installation view "Kos Dibonds", Galerie Sandra Bürgel, Berlin 2016
"Kos view to Bodrum, the sea between here and there is a brutalist surface. October 22 2015”, 2015/2016
archival light jet print, Alu-Dibond, 20,5 x 33 cm, Ed. 1/5 + 1AP
Installation view "Kos Dibonds", Galerie Sandra Bürgel, Berlin 2016
VALERIE STAHL VON STROMBERG
Kos Dibonds
16 January - 5 March 2016
Galerie Sandra Bürgel is very pleased to present Kos Dibonds, an exhibition of Valerie Stahl von Stromberg, travelling from Pantaleonsmuehlengasse, Cologne (Oct - Dec 2015) to Berlin slightly altered.
The artist has been working for over 6 months now on the island of Kos establishing an NGO with the name KRNYH (Kos Refugees Need Your Help). The Berlin exhibition will present approx. 20 Alu Dibonds (Ed. of 5) from an underlying much larger documentation of published and unpublished photographs that the artist has been making almost daily during her work for KRNYH. They are mainly portraits of refugees, single or in social relationships, of volunteers - them often being refugees too -, and landscapes such as the Aegean Sea, coast, or storm-tossed harbour of Kos City.
Basically, Dibonds are photographs mounted on aluminium with a perspex sheeting reminding us today of the composition of mobile phones and other screen-like surfaces. Their source images here are 2650x1600 pixels, which is the resolution of a screenshot and more precisely of the artist’s correspondence on Facebook. Mobile phones, filled with photographs of places destroyed, home and memories, are a direct and only connection source of many refugees to their families in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hopes and tools for logistics and financial organization are contained in an object ranging from small Motorola to iPad- size things, 10cm - 20cm, an object made up from plastic, metal, cable, lithium, pigments and scratches, wears and tears that tell the story of their journeys. An additional work in the show is the sculpture “Compass ear” (2011), a CNC- fabricated object deriving from a 3-D scan of an ear and a compass merging into one object. The “Compass ear”, that appeared in previous exhibitions stands as a metaphor for a feeling of orientation, a sense of direction and the reliance of communication.
The screenshots combine image and text, and comments. Concise pieces of text add information to the image, even if they are limited in form by the sectional view of the webpage and in content by the fragmentary and proxy nature of the fates being told. The screenshots not only try to share individual and collective memories, they reproduce the artist’s situation in situ and respond to an emotionally dense working environment in Kos. They shift between journalism, survey, appeal (in the context of KRNYH alleviating the suffering of refugees), and social documentary photography with a specific emphasize on personal dignity. Interestingly enough, the latter occurred in its current terminology around 1930, during the time of the „Great Depression“ and vast migration flows. Documentary approaches figure also in other works of the artist when she has visited coalmines in Luoyang China and Ferro Silicone production sites in Inner Mongolia - this time unusual are the very several simultaneous functions of the artist from within the community. These have led to the artist’s decision to leave behind any questions about the separation of disciplines.
Valerie Stahl von Stromberg lives in Berlin but considers Kos her second home. The impromptu bridging measure (summer 2015) to buy food for some of the hundreds of refugees arriving each day on the island from diverse places, via Turkish Bodrum in rubber dinghies, received broad support from her facebook "event" Kos refugees need your help and established itself as a humanitarian work organisation. KRNYH focuses on essential non-medical first aid and a mediation between the local communities of Kos and the refugees arriving on the island. It is the main actor handing out warm food everyday with an autumn peak of 1,000-1,400 meals daily (in total more than 90,000 in the past months, currently arranged with local restaurant "Finger Food", Uncle Ali) plus weekly shoes and ferry tickets to Athens for very poor refugees with specific needs identified by UNHCR. Its work is done in close consultation with the UNHCR, IGOs and non-state actors such as Médecins sans Frontières, Αλληλεγγύη Κως/Kos Solidarity, Stichting Bootvluchteling, and of course refugees helping on site. Its is unusual to have these nationalities meet here for the few days they are staying, having to accommodate to food lines. Often the refugees would not share the same room in their home country, which can simultaneously be a reason why they left. Languages spoken are Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish, Arabic, Farsi, Dari and many others. The Greek island, itself suffering painfully from the European austerity policy lacks providing vital services and assisting structures for the refugees, no food, no shelter, no sanitary facilities, no permissions, no land.
Appendix from 2013
Valerie Stahl von Stromberg (born 1976, grew up in Cologne) parts from the topoi and ensured tradition of classical photography. The fact that her images preserve a human keynote corresponds to the tradition of documentary photography. However, what discharges them from social well-being on the one hand and from typological documentation on the other hand, is their fascination for the harshness, durability and isolation of human thinking, and the desire to fathom it in many impulses and constants. The works deal with what is available to mankind. Often their choice of motifs is indebted to tools, cultures or natures.
Kos Dibonds
16 January - 5 March 2016
Galerie Sandra Bürgel is very pleased to present Kos Dibonds, an exhibition of Valerie Stahl von Stromberg, travelling from Pantaleonsmuehlengasse, Cologne (Oct - Dec 2015) to Berlin slightly altered.
The artist has been working for over 6 months now on the island of Kos establishing an NGO with the name KRNYH (Kos Refugees Need Your Help). The Berlin exhibition will present approx. 20 Alu Dibonds (Ed. of 5) from an underlying much larger documentation of published and unpublished photographs that the artist has been making almost daily during her work for KRNYH. They are mainly portraits of refugees, single or in social relationships, of volunteers - them often being refugees too -, and landscapes such as the Aegean Sea, coast, or storm-tossed harbour of Kos City.
Basically, Dibonds are photographs mounted on aluminium with a perspex sheeting reminding us today of the composition of mobile phones and other screen-like surfaces. Their source images here are 2650x1600 pixels, which is the resolution of a screenshot and more precisely of the artist’s correspondence on Facebook. Mobile phones, filled with photographs of places destroyed, home and memories, are a direct and only connection source of many refugees to their families in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hopes and tools for logistics and financial organization are contained in an object ranging from small Motorola to iPad- size things, 10cm - 20cm, an object made up from plastic, metal, cable, lithium, pigments and scratches, wears and tears that tell the story of their journeys. An additional work in the show is the sculpture “Compass ear” (2011), a CNC- fabricated object deriving from a 3-D scan of an ear and a compass merging into one object. The “Compass ear”, that appeared in previous exhibitions stands as a metaphor for a feeling of orientation, a sense of direction and the reliance of communication.
The screenshots combine image and text, and comments. Concise pieces of text add information to the image, even if they are limited in form by the sectional view of the webpage and in content by the fragmentary and proxy nature of the fates being told. The screenshots not only try to share individual and collective memories, they reproduce the artist’s situation in situ and respond to an emotionally dense working environment in Kos. They shift between journalism, survey, appeal (in the context of KRNYH alleviating the suffering of refugees), and social documentary photography with a specific emphasize on personal dignity. Interestingly enough, the latter occurred in its current terminology around 1930, during the time of the „Great Depression“ and vast migration flows. Documentary approaches figure also in other works of the artist when she has visited coalmines in Luoyang China and Ferro Silicone production sites in Inner Mongolia - this time unusual are the very several simultaneous functions of the artist from within the community. These have led to the artist’s decision to leave behind any questions about the separation of disciplines.
Valerie Stahl von Stromberg lives in Berlin but considers Kos her second home. The impromptu bridging measure (summer 2015) to buy food for some of the hundreds of refugees arriving each day on the island from diverse places, via Turkish Bodrum in rubber dinghies, received broad support from her facebook "event" Kos refugees need your help and established itself as a humanitarian work organisation. KRNYH focuses on essential non-medical first aid and a mediation between the local communities of Kos and the refugees arriving on the island. It is the main actor handing out warm food everyday with an autumn peak of 1,000-1,400 meals daily (in total more than 90,000 in the past months, currently arranged with local restaurant "Finger Food", Uncle Ali) plus weekly shoes and ferry tickets to Athens for very poor refugees with specific needs identified by UNHCR. Its work is done in close consultation with the UNHCR, IGOs and non-state actors such as Médecins sans Frontières, Αλληλεγγύη Κως/Kos Solidarity, Stichting Bootvluchteling, and of course refugees helping on site. Its is unusual to have these nationalities meet here for the few days they are staying, having to accommodate to food lines. Often the refugees would not share the same room in their home country, which can simultaneously be a reason why they left. Languages spoken are Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish, Arabic, Farsi, Dari and many others. The Greek island, itself suffering painfully from the European austerity policy lacks providing vital services and assisting structures for the refugees, no food, no shelter, no sanitary facilities, no permissions, no land.
Appendix from 2013
Valerie Stahl von Stromberg (born 1976, grew up in Cologne) parts from the topoi and ensured tradition of classical photography. The fact that her images preserve a human keynote corresponds to the tradition of documentary photography. However, what discharges them from social well-being on the one hand and from typological documentation on the other hand, is their fascination for the harshness, durability and isolation of human thinking, and the desire to fathom it in many impulses and constants. The works deal with what is available to mankind. Often their choice of motifs is indebted to tools, cultures or natures.