“disco nap” I Poklong Anading I Artist in Residence 2018

For his exhibition at das weisse haus, Poklong Anading used his Vienna residency and the experiences he made during it as his subject. What is the added value of a residency? What connections can be drawn between certain places and people? How can these impression and encounters be translated into artistic work?

A possible angle for Poklong Anading lay in regarding art residencies as modes of accommodation. During his time in Vienna, the artist primarily focused on his “invisible” hosts, tracing the flow of water throughout the city. His interest was particularly piqued by the Wien River, which almost entirely disappeared from the cityscape at the end of the 19^th century when it was regulated and relegated to an underground system of channels. At the same time, Anading studied the behavior patterns of people along the Danube River, and observed how they engaged with this local recreation area.

The course of water eventually served him as an apt metaphor for the concept of reflection. Anading purchased various mirrors from the Naschmarkt flea market and placed them into conversation with the name of his host institution. White is embedded in the notion of light—the sum of all colors. Anading used the mirrors like a kind of channel in order to guide natural light inside the exhibition space. In doing so, Anading interacted with people on the street and photographed them holding the mirror as they reflected the sunlight. The resulting portraits combine the exterior and interior worlds in more ways than one.