The archaeology of space and other encounters between humanity and nature: on the installations of Sonia Leimer
The Vienna-based artist Sonia Leimer (born 1977) has risen to international renown in recent years with her large-scale, multimedia installations exploring the more awe-inspiring encounters of culture and nature. In her exhibition Space Junk at Museion Bolzano, Leimer explores the detritus of human activity in outer space. Components from derelict satellites and space probes that accidentally fall to earth provide the materials for the artist to explore themes of a world shaped by utopian ideas of modernity that has now been forced to confront a dystopian future. In this volume, reproductions of these and other works are mixed in a dense sequence with notes, found footage, video stills and views documenting the exhibition. The result is a nonlinear web of associations and situations that reveals Leimer's work process and ongoing research into objects and materials that are of social, historical and personal significance.