As part of the cooperation between BIG ART and FOTO WIEN photography festival, we are shining a spotlight on our activities in the area of architectural photography.
BIG Young Talent Award for Architectural Photography
This Young Talent Award, presented for the first time in 2022, recognises outstanding young photographers with a special focus on architecture. In addition to EUR 5,000 in prize money, the winner receives a photography commission from BIG.
The winner of our first-ever Young Talent Award is Nadine Weixler from Salzburg. The judging panel, made up of Rainer Iglar, Bettina Leidl and Walter Seidl, explained that they chose Nadine Weixler because of the myriad ways in which she explores the photographic dispositif, by taking a conceptual approach while always maintaining a view of architecture as an identity-forming factor. Her photographic series focus on public spaces and on how they impact individuals’ situations. For the most part, she captures in-between moments that seem innocuous, but that say a lot about ubiquitous ways of life. It is Weixler’s distinctive eye for architecture, objects and people that makes her photography so powerful.
Weixler studied photography at Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, Germany. She has been on the board of FOTOHOF Salzburg since 2016 and was appointed chair of the board in 2021. She works and lives in Salzburg.
“SPACES REVISITED. Architecture as a Visual Marker” – Photo Exhibition in the BIG Foyer
The Spaces Revisited exhibition presents the work of three photographers commissioned by the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft to take photos of its buildings, the results of which are now part of BIG’s vast photo archive. In the runup to the FOTO WIEN festival, curator Walter Seidl looked through the archive and selected photographs of buildings that stand out by virtue of their extraordinary architecture. These exterior and interior views have been assembled to form a photo collage that makes up the Spaces Revisited exhibition.
The selected photos were taken by Hertha Hurnaus, Andrew Phelps and Herman Seidl, and can be viewed in the foyer of the BIG headquarters (Trabrennstraße 2c, 1020 Vienna) from 8 to 30 March.
The photographic dispositif hones the view of that reality which constitutively accompanies social phenomena and is governed by technical and situation-specific parameters. Architectural photography, in particular, opens up various approaches regarding how buildings and their interiors can be depicted. Increasingly, it is public buildings that are being examined as to their form, function and social components and that also inspired sophisticated ideas about architecture in the past few decades.
The featured photographers approach the spaces and axes of visibility presented in Spaces Revisited in their own, very unique ways. A certain degree of objectivity is a key element of the debate. This objectivity is then expanded through each individual mode of artistic expression, and full shots are mixed with detailed views. The photos presented show publicly accessible spaces that allow for great variety in the positioning of individuals. Consequently, this leads to an analysis of both architectural and location-specific questions to facilitate the exploration of content-related situations and processes.