Collection of 55 cards

Several exhibitions in Vienna, 2015-2018

Project by Cosima Terrasse and Christoph Steininger

Sponsored by österreichische Post

Resident permits, the lawful representation of foreigness, were changed and re-issued following some sixty conversations with non-europeans residing in Vienna: both people with or without the required paper work.

The project deals with the complex entanglement of rejection, insecurity and bureaucratic lunacy, when a person arrives somewhere as a foreigner.

Christoph Steininger and me conducted interviews with people who went through the lengthy procedures of registration for a residence permit in Austria. The exhibited cards reflect the conflicting image of administrative identity and personal biography. Only a closer examination reveals the differences between the original and the recreation: the latter states no expiry dates, no names or nationalities. Rather it replaces them with comments and sentences which capture the interviewees’ point of view.

Interview partners were invited to collect their cards during the opening of Angewandte yearly Exhibition (some were dispatched later).

Exhibited at :

Essence 2015 : Liberté, Egalité, Full HD, Künstlerhaus, Wien.
SWdZ (so-weit-die-zukunft), Wien., 2015.
Stand 129, Wien, 2018.

Featured in :
Das Bienvenue: ein Recht auf Raum für alle: Barbara Holub, Alexander Betts,Sophie Goltz, Georg Winter, die Angewandte

Artmagazine.cc, the Essence
15: Zukunftsweisende Interdisziplinarität, Harald Zinner- Wögerbauer, 2015.

Stadtform Magazine, issue 02, pp. 16-21, 2016.