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Without the status of historical protection or being another gem in the state’s crown, who will remember the places that get lost in the quest for shiny condos, shopping centers, and fitness salons? What kind of mourning rituals do we attach to the spaces and subcultures that give these places meaning?

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Measure twice, cut once...

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For the PdBA collection, Flo Karl Berger drafted a travel report from visits to overlooked landmarks of Vienna. Beginning with a trip to the interior halls of the Palais on Lowengasse, he eventually made his way to the oldest tree in Vienna, the tallest tree in Vienna, the oldest parking garage in Vienna, and the deepest parking garage in Vienna.

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Approaching each site without a key or any official assignment, Berger found ways into each through subtle acts of diplomacy. While he could have broken into each landmark under the cloak of darkness or with a small set of tools, his logic was to create access points that could be repeated by the public. Breaking in can only happen once, while diplomacy has the potential to create unlimited future visits.

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Berger often approaches remembrance through materiality, reclaiming discarded artifacts and asking that we take just one more look and one more listen to their stories before letting them go. Because Berger’s process is rooted in the tactile, performative, and participatory, it’s often in opposition to the flatness and short attention span of the screen. For the collection of the PdBA, translating the work into pixels was an ongoing conversation and sculptural challenge. The official title of the work doesn’t fit neatly into the space of the website, and after being translated into English also unfortunately had to be cut to fit the format:

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Zugänge haben/having access

Reisebericht aus/über

Privatgründe/n mit Landmarks

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(Having access

travel report from/across

private property with landmarks)

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*Working with the social, political, and material expression of assembly, Flo Karl Berger builds temporary sculptural situations focused on time, memory, and the collective structures of ritual. Having worked for years as a gardener for cemeteries, Berger has designed custom gravestones, led funerary processions made from assemblages of overwritten sites, and participated in numerous squatters initiatives in Vienna, Ljubljana, and Helsinki.

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Active in the social sector since 2008, Berger is a founding and ongoing member of Pannonische Tafel (a foodbank and social outreach program in Burgenland), the St. Marx Initiative (a DIY skatepark in the third district of Vienna which hosts open community workshops), as well as the anarchist art collective Gruppe Bussi, which focuses on participatory public interventions and strategies for a better world through caring, local relationships.

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