I see art as a way to distill truths from the environment that surrounds us, one that works fundamentally differently from theory or science. Art steps in where theory fails. My field research doesn’t have a set methodology, but I collect lots of photographs that I use as an archive, which loosely informs my formal choices.

When I started making art, I would always try to find images that addressed the most general matters in an abstract way, in the hope of being legible to everyone. Over the years, I have realized that specificity is more powerful. From the specific, one can always draw connections to other very specific settings. Since then, my work has sparked conversations with people from different countries and backgrounds about the kind of youth marketing schemes their local banks have or what their provincial shopping centers feel like.

Irony would mean the opposite of what is said, which would bore me quickly. Good humor is layered and is an effective way of inviting people to deal with ambiguity. People are often eager to know what I really mean, whether detached homes are fundamentally evil or whether I find certain buildings ugly. The truth is, the more I look at and the more I learn about things, the less clear my judgment becomes. Everything is a product of its social context; even the most provincial prefab house does some things right, and the most prestigious building fails us.

Building societies were originally a clever and emancipatory invention. Instead of ten people saving up individually for ten years before each could start building a house, they team up and put their savings together. That way, one person can already start building their house after the first year, the second a year later, and so on. In West Germany, saving for a detached family home was and still is subsidized by the state. In the post-war era, the clever use of building society saving programs plus governmental support enabled a lot of lower-class families to become homeowners. Germany’s biggest building society, “Schwäbisch Hall,” started using a fox with glasses as their mascot to highlight the fact that home ownership is a question of clever saving. Today, house and building prices have skyrocketed, and the determining factor in whether you can afford to buy a house is no longer cleverness or income, but inherited wealth. The narrative of the clever fox never changed. The only thing that changed was the clothing and animation style of the fox. It was regularly adapted to the current mainstream. In early 2026, a new fox was launched. It is still wearing skinny jeans. I suppose they no longer try to address the younger generation.

Science tries hard to make abstract data digestible. When I found a collection of graphics from social structure analyses from different decades, I was fascinated that the sociologists would present their data by giving it an iconic shape. For example, for Ralf Darendorf in the 1960s, society is structured like a house. The lower and middle classes are equally big; towards the roof, it gets smaller. Also, there is a lift that can take you upwards. Other diagrams look like potatoes, onions, or bungalow houses. If you look between the mock confectionery, you will also find traces of analogue bureaucracy, like paper clips and pushpins. Something between order and embellishment.

When I developed the work, Germany was about to pass a new heating law in 2024. The plan was to make heating more sustainable by implementing laws for the energy efficiency of private houses. Heating became a very emotional topic because a lot of people feared they could not afford to upgrade their heating. While these concerns weren’t entirely wrong, the political reality was much more nuanced than simply forcing everyone to buy a heat pump. All of a sudden, some people saw their old gas heating as a symbol of resistance against the "green dictatorship" of the government, while for others, getting a heat pump was a status symbol.

The series is titled “After Saving (Proposals for Sandstone Reliefs for the Facades of Former Banks).” I visited a lot of bank branches that were about to be closed because I felt drawn to their interiors, which were typically very Y2K, as this was the last era of refurbishments. By coincidence, I discovered that many buildings had historic sandstone reliefs on them, often from the early 20th century. The reliefs featured didactic messages about saving money and working hard. I thought that the conversation about finances should be triggered in public space, after all the transactions had moved online. On social media, the topic is vividly discussed. With the rise of "finfluencers" promoting financial education and sometimes sketchy investments, there was also a lot of content, often humorous, dedicated to the perceived lower chances of financial prosperity for younger generations today. Right now, the reliefs are just a thought experiment. I wouldn't mind actually bringing them into public space, where they could bear witness to the buildings’ former function while also sparking intergenerational conversations about money.

Although I don’t base my work on theory, Svetlana Boym’s two versions of nostalgia have helped me pin down my understanding of it in hindsight: “restorative nostalgia” is the kind of nostalgia connected to a desire to reconstruct a past where everything was seemingly better. “Reflective nostalgia,” on the other hand, uses nostalgic sentiments to reflect on the present. My work never aims to replicate an original state from the past. Instead, I work with traces of the past as they are in the present. I am particularly interested in stylistic impurities and the real-life versions behind canonized styles. Rather than wanting to find out how past decades really were, I am fascinated by the sentiments about past decades that exist in people’s minds today. Nostalgia, just like humor, is a Trojan horse. It triggers emotions and gets people to uncover more layers.

Hamburg shaped me as an artist, as I did my MFA at the HFBK. Friends of mine founded Kunstverein Gastgarten, which is dedicated to solo and duo exhibitions by emerging Hamburg-aligned artists. Also, the Kunsthaus Hamburg is just a few steps away from the prestigious Deichtorhallen and the Hamburger Kunstverein and presents phenomenal solo exhibitions by young artists and interesting thematic group exhibitions.

Kunstverein Siegen has a special place in my heart. In addition to really great exhibitions, the institution also has a comprehensive program that experiments with new formats, such as performances featuring a double-decker bus or a revival of the old department store. You might think there’s a huge team behind it all, but in reality, curator Jennifer Cierlitza puts it all together with just a few freelance collaborators. It is one of many examples of great art institutions outside the big cities. This is a particular strength of the German cultural landscape.

Exhibition fees. If we agree that public art institutions should be places for diverse experiences, this will mean that more formats in the future will not include marketable artworks. Artists’ associations have been fighting for this for a very long time. Fees are often still very low, but there is a shift in the mindset of young curators. Unfortunately, the recent cuts to cultural funding in Germany have shown that this progress is still built on shaky ground.