Danube:Island

Herwig Turk, (Lecturer)
Art x Science School for Transformation

Industrial zone, local recreational area and sensitive ecosystem – the Danube is a reconfigured cultural landscape marked by stark contrasts. The Austrian artists Herwig Turk and Gebhard Sengmüller have chosen this as the starting point for their artistic research: as part of their project Danube: Sediment Shifts in Interstitial Space they have created a complex of works, originally conceived for Vienna, at the interface of art and the natural sciences. These are now being augmented for the exhibition by geographical, ecological and historical aspects of the city of Linz. Using the island as an artistic figure of thought, Turk and Sengmüller combine historical realities – such as the Strasserinsel, which existed in Linz until the 19th century – with current socio-political discourses on the utilisation of the Danube region by means of an artificial island.