Seaside me

Exhibition

11. –30. April 2025

Selected art Photography by Woldt concept are on display in the Hafen City, Hamburg

Haspa Windows (pop-up Woldt Gallery)

Am Kaiserkai 1, 20457 Hamburg 

Hosted courtesy of Hamburger Sparkasse

Exhibition Seaside me presents four photographic works created between 2018 and 2020 that intertwine nature observation, memory, and self-location. Three of the works – Twins as it was, History nautical, and Organic 2 – were created on the Atlantic coast at Saunton Sands (North Devon). In one intense moment, the sea surged, a strong wind set in – nature revealed its full force. Since our origins in seawater, these elemental forces have accompanied us, fascinated us in a sublime way, challenged our play – and left traces. In the landscape, these traces become visible as incisions: on the horizon, in the earth, in the shapes of the tides.

The fourth work, Primordial, was created along the Alster river in Hamburg. Two chopped tree trunks lie in green moss – here too, a cut, an intervention, a marking of time. These incisions, whether in the landscape or in life, imprint themselves, become part of both collective and personal memory – and become visible. The earth appears as a reservoir of the world and of humanity, as a bearer of time, memory, and transformation.

This photographic series is part of my artistic journey under the name Woldt concept, which emerged from the need to explore the relationship between verbal-conceptual expression and visual composition. For years, alongside my academic work, I have been writing poetry and, occasionally, short stories. The photographs shown here are not metaphors, but verses – visual verses – through which I reflexively describe consciously sought experiences of perception. I am always in search of the answer to the question of what guides my gaze and attention – and how what is seen takes shape. History and historical processes – the ebb and flow, like on the shore, where the waves bring and take away – lead us into reflection. They entice us to join in, to go out, to listen to the surf. The water leaves traces, like spolia, shaping an impermanent, ever-changing coastal landscape – visible, for instance, in Organic 2 or History nautical. Even in Primordial, with the two severed tree trunks along the Alster, words emerge from the images, become legible – and simultaneously dissolve back into them. The visible becomes poetry.

I am an art historian, cultural scholar, university professor, and intermedial artist. In my artistic practice, I combine photography, conceptual art, text, video, and natural materials to make processes of memory, bodily experience, and social transformation visible. Under the name Woldt concept, I create artworks that explore themes such as memory, identity, embodiment, and spatial experience. My artistic work is closely connected to my research on embodied cognition, aesthetic theory, and the anthropology of artistic creation, and often emerges in dialogue with contemporary artists within interdisciplinary contexts.

info@woldtgallery.com