WILL-O’-THE-WISP
Will-o’-the-wisp refers to a soft, flickering light appearing in swamps or wetlands, historically interpreted as an illusion, omen, or wonder. Something not graspable, a brief moment, a light in the dark.
The phenomenon is commonly explained by the escape of swamp gases such as methane or phosphine, which occur only under highly specific conditions. Although science has replaced many mythical readings, the unsettled feeling and fascination associated with
the unknown persist. Swamps and wetlands themselves embody this tension. Often framed as hostile or uninhabitable, a space of danger and disorientation, they shelter a complex and flourishing life that emerges at night. As one of the most thriving and important ecosystems, it serves a key role by filtering pollutants and toxins, regulating water levels.
Within the exhibition, the will-o’-the-wisp becomes a metaphor for this concealed vitality, unfolding below the surface, pointing to hidden ecosystems that are usually overlooked.
This creates an ambivalence between threat and shelter, fragility and resilience. In this context, nature and the environment emerge as a central symbolic field, seen both as a force that resists control and
as something vulnerable that requires protection. Looking at what connects and distinguishes the artistic views, references extend across the framework, transgress boundaries, genres, and materials. While Ernst Cassirer describes a universal “symbolic universe,” Judith Butler understands symbolic reality as power-laden and produced through bodily practices. Meaning emerges through repetition, not essence, exposing how systems stabilize dominance. Read alongside Maureen Murdock’s inner journey, this shift enables a deconstruction of symbolic authority and its claim to universality.
Through various artistic media such as painting, sculpture, collage, and installation, the participating artists examine how ideas of fragility and strength are culturally and historically produced through these symbolic forces. What counts as weak or strong, and how is this ambiguity grounded in our society? Symbols represent something else, explaining a person, object, or event used to define a quality or idea. Therefore, it is explored how fragility and strength do not stand in opposition but emerge as entangled conditions. Clear lines are often associated with stability and power, while dense, organic, or ornamental forms are coded as decorative. In the exhibition, floral forms are released from their decorative function and become visible as carriers of complex meanings. Nature is not understood as a romanticized backdrop but as a charged space where power and resilience can be expressed. Strength does not always appear as visible dominance but can be something quiet and concealed, perceptible only at second glance, comparable to the will-o’-the-wisp itself.
JULIA ÅBERG
Julia Åberg’s work employs visual storytelling through collage, text, and printmaking. Influenced by film, snapshot photography, and surrealist paintings. They resemble film stills or cinematic sequences, layered with overlapping narratives.
As source material, she works with old editions of the Swedish magazine “SE“ which was an important photojournalism publication that ran from 1938 to 1981. Rather than referencing current culture, Åberg chooses imagery from another time, using it as raw material to craft new narratives. Elements are erased — people, objects, traces — and the newspaper medium itself, once a vehicle for current events, is dismantled. What first appears chaotic is carefully organized: a fragmented world is reimagined from small snippets into a cohesive whole.
In „Night Out“, the artist situates the work within the atmosphere of a night out — moving through bars with empty glasses, dance floors under strobe lights, and shifting groups of people. The collage unfolds in scenes, almost episodically. In the last part of the work, the perspective shifts and leads onto a dark road, evoking the feeling of walking home alone, alert and cautious. A road sign warning of dangerous curves appears. What was once light can turn strange or heavy; the environment becomes bizarre, the constellation of people unfamiliar, or the mood unsettling.
The road is a recurring motif, deserted and bordered by dense forests; these landscapes carry
a sense that something might be lurking just beyond view. For Julia Åberg, these roads do not necessarily lead to a concrete destination; they function as symbols of restlessness and constant movement.
In the showroom, the collages interplay with Maria Belova ́s installation, encountering the theme of rituals. In everyday context, figures hold mirrors, yet they don‘t see their own reflection. What becomes visible is a door with light shining through, hinting at an exit. In these works, beauty appears not as a surface, but as protection, projection, or armor. Preparing by putting on a mask.
MARIA BELOVA
Through her works, Maria Belova reveals how protection, strength, and fragility are constructed through material, ritual, and belief. Engagement of protection, materiality, and symbolism is shown. Historical images and ornamental depictions of nature are engraved into metal using techniques reminiscent of those used in armor engraving. Armor traditionally signifies protection, strength, and invulnerability, yet historically it offered only partial safety. It was heavy, restrictive, and closely tied to visibility, rank, and status. Protection here is not absolute, but negotiated through material, belief, and display.
This ambivalence is seen in the work “The Forest”. Based on a copper engraving by Israel van Meckenem from after 1485, ornamental images of nature dissolve into abstracted forms that recall camouflage. Forests historically functioned as spaces of refuge, places to hide and escape exposure in open fields. At the same time, they can be viewed as unsettling environments: dense with sound, obscured vision, and hidden presences. In the engravings, trees, unknown fruits, and human figures appear intertwined. What seems protective can become disorienting; what appears decorative may conceal danger.
The sculptural works extend this inquiry into belief systems and ritual as strategies for coping with the unknown. In “Ritual Study,” a series of performative installations made from granulated materials such as flour, pigment, and salt record the traces of bodily movement during ritual actions. What remains is not the body but its imprint. The viewer encounters physical evidence of action — marks, gestures, patterns — without witnessing the act itself. Prayers become visualized without being spoken, and belief is present without a visible subject.
ESTER GAŠPAROVÁ
Ester Gašparová’s work explores how symbols of power persist and shift. In Rings of Ash, she presents three ceramic eagle reliefs. Across cultures from ancient Mesopotamia to imperial Rome, the eagle has stood for sovereignty and divine order. The single-headed eagle signified imperial rule; the double-headed form, adopted by Byzantium and later European empires, suggested divided or dual authority. The rarer three-headed eagle, linked to mysticism and nationalist occultism, evokes dominion over heaven, earth, and the underworld.
Historically, the eagle has functioned as an image of authority, sovereignty, and order. But positioned horizontally on a round table, it is stripped of status and removed from its heraldic posture. The eagles no longer assert dominance; instead, they are exposing their backs, unusual and nearly vulnerable. With no ornamentation, the forms try to reject the normal glorification and visualise how symbols persist, mutate, and re-enter culture as fragments of belief. The ceramic reliefs, initially
raw and fragile, undermine the promise of permanence that such emblems traditionally convey. Power here appears less as a fixed structure than as a condition reliant on belief and ritualised reinforcement. The circular arrangement and a cage-like steel construction suggest a closed system in which ideologies return, mutate, and reassert themselves despite historical rupture.
MAKS RZ
Maks Rz’s work indicates a shift of fragility toward the inner world. Doubt, guilt, and self-interrogation are central to Back problems, heavy lifting – work that points to a persistent corporeal imbalance,
a burden carried low and in front of us that demands continual postural adjustment rather than
overt display. The work engages with questions of perception and truth, interrogating the nature of projection and positioning vulnerability not as spectacle, but as a persistent state of tension.
Echoing the will-o’-the-wisp as a phenomenon that emerges only under delicate and specific conditions, thereby inhabiting a state of uncertainty and transience. The tension between the desire for expression and the apprehension of occupying excessive space parallels the flickering presence of the marsh light: visible yet unstable, present yet perpetually at risk of vanishing. In this context, visibility is experienced as a burden, and self-restraint becomes a nuanced form of self-erasure.
ANNA TAGANZEVA
In the works of Anna Taganzevas, meaning unfolds through the symbolic charge of the motifs rather than through narrative or representation. She works with images drawn from nature that are culturally overdetermined, forms that hold inherited expectations and projections. Within the exhibition, this symbolic language is directed toward the figure of the swan and the flower.
Traditionally associated with grace, beauty, and fragility, the swan also embodies aggression, territorial defence, and physical resilience. It holds these contradictory qualities in tension, allowing the motif to oscillate between vulnerability and force. The swan appears not as a passive image, but as a resistant body, one that defies its own idealisation. It destabilises fixed readings of strength and weakness. What appears gentle reveals its capacity for endurance and defence.
Central to this is „Blooming”, a sculptural series that evokes a hidden, subterranean process of growth. Strength unfolds slowly and invisibly, beneath the surface of what is suggested to the gaze. The wood clay hardens and merges with the imitation of synthetic stone. Roots seem to be connected to the ground, carrying the fragile shapes and lifting them above the ground.
JULIA WORONOWICZ
By examining forgotten mythologies, Julia Woronowicz delves into ethnofictional narratives and alternative versions of history, as a complex weave of legends, myths, and beliefs. Rather than proposing complete stories, her works direct attention toward what remains erased or forgotten.
A point of reference is Mazonia, an alternative feminist culture framed to have existed between the 6th and 17th centuries. Neither a clearly defined geographical location nor a historical fact, Mazonia functions as a cultural and fictional construct shaped by myths of Amazons, functioning as warriors and protectors. The name references the swamp, as an untamed and organic space from which life and transformation emerge. Early Mazonic culture was based on matriarchal (later matrilineal) structures, which should be regarded as a direct legacy of Amazonian civilization. The name “Mazonian” is derived from their ancestresses, although references are also made to roots in the Caucasian Ormian language, in which mazos means “moon women,” as well as to a Slavic etymology connected with the word “maź”, which may be interpreted as a reference to lowland, marshy natural conditions.
In this series of works, figurations appear to float within their surroundings, merging with the environment itself. The paintings become more abstract, marking the beginning of a new pictorial territory — one that shifts from external narration toward inner worlds. Shaped by mythology, mystery, and the imagery of fear and emotion. Water appears here not only as landscape, but as a intimate substance, referring to breath and saliva— elements that blur the boundary between inside and outside. Within these fluid spaces, questions of power, friendship, innocence, and what is perceived as kind or harmless unfold without resolution. Like the swamp itself, perceived as hostile yet sustaining complex life where vulnerability and resilience are inseparable.
LORENZO ZERBINI
Lorenzo Zerbini‘s practice focuses on substances and technologies that operate quietly and correspond to phenomena that appear harmless yet emerge from highly specific and volatile conditions.
In “It Haunts Us in Our Walls (Scroll),” a curtain of insect-repellent aluminum chains is suspended from the ceiling. It partially obstructs vision while maintaining transparency, reflecting the contrast between barrier and openness. The work references the historical prevalence of arsenic, a substance that served as poison, pesticide, pigment, and cosmetic. During the Victorian era, arsenic-based greens appeared in nature-inspired wallpapers and fabrics, embedding chemical violence within domestic spaces disguised as beauty. Thus, the interior becomes a site where danger is both aestheticized and concealed. The ornamental design of William Morris’ Scroll pattern is referenced, underscoring how representations of nature can obscure mechanisms of control.
“We Meet at Nightfall” is a chandelier lamp composed of insect-repellent aluminum chains. These emit a specific “twilight light” spectrum designed to repel insects. The light attracts and functions as a tool of demise at the same time. What draws human presence simultaneously rejects other forms of life. This inversion reflects the will-o’-the-wisp flickering light that both offers orientation and leads nowhere. The work reveals how fragility and strength are produced through material choices and technological design. Transparency does not equal openness; illumination does not guarantee clarity. It‘s a state between care and harm, attraction and exclusion.
About the curator:
As an independent curator, Julia Harrauer’s practice centers on interdisciplinary contemporary art and is shaped by her specialization in cultural philosophy and media aesthetics. Her research engages with philosophical, phenomenological, and contextual dimensions of social structures. She holds a degree in art history from the University of Vienna and a diploma in graphic and communication design. In recent years, she started own projects and in 2021 co-founded the Young Curators Club Vienna (YCC). In 2025, she has curated several independent exhibitions, including a year-long program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, exhibitions for the non-profit initiative Back to Athens, and shows featuring emerging artists at Viennese galleries. Her professional background further includes operations management at viennacontemporary, tutoring at the University of Vienna, and functioning as curatorial assistant at the art fair Parallel Vienna.
