Nicole Pruckermayr has already worked with materials from VPZ as a lecturer at the TU-Graz, e.g. for the project “Dissolution included” in the Austrian Sculpture Park. In her current independent projects “Hier könnte ein Baum stehen” (“There could be a tree here”) and “Gina liebt” (“Gina loves”) she uses our beechwood-based Packnatur® Cellulose Tube Netting to create compostable structures and connect people.

A POSSIBILITY TREE FOR THE CITY OF GRAZ         

THERE COULD BE A TREE HERE!

AN ECO-SOCIAL ART PROJECT BY NICOLE PRUCKERMAYR

Only by making the possibility of a tree visible can the need for a tree actually be awakened. Based on this idea and the geometry of nature, the artist Nicole Pruckermayr, in collaboration with Milena Stavrić from the Institute of Architecture and Media at Graz University of Technology and students from the HTBLVA-Ortweinschule BAUTECHNIK_KUNST & DESIGN in cooperation with the Institute for Art in Public Space Styria, developed an artificial tree from the wood of a real tree. At the car park near Wielandgasse 38-40 in the Jakomini district (Graz, Austria), there will be a tree sculpture for a few weeks, a model-like tree, one that is a placeholder for a real tree. Many places in the city have a need for trees. Existing infrastructure, such as streets and parking lots, hardly provide opportunities for additional greenery. But: trees do not fall from the sky. Seeds, however, can fall and sprout – if you let them. The potentiality awakens the desire for a living tree, one that grows, that changes its colour dress. The proxy tree is therefore like a speech bubble of existing desires for change for a liveable urban landscape and at the same time enables an individual bond: to ONE tree, to MY tree, to OUR tree.

Photos: Nikolaos Zachariadis

A TAPESTRY AT THE TENNENMÄLZEREI
“GINA LOVES!” WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF “KUNST AM BAU REININGHAUS”

The socio-cultural art project “GINA Loves!” by Nicole Pruckermayr has taken up residence in Reininghaus over the past few months to talk to local people about love and to work together on a declaration of love. It was to be a carelessly thrown down, warped, jointly knotted carpet in the shape of a heart on the wall, created by over 100 people who tied 40,000 knots. Like a multidimensional tattoo, a sculptural graffiti, the commonly created artwork is now visible from afar on the historic wall. Every single knot is important in this textile fabric that speaks about love. Each knot is unique.

And who is GINA anyways? This project is inspired by the great love between Gina Agujari (1879-1961), divorcee of Reininghaus, and Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852-1925). This love existed many years ago, other loves exist in the here and now. These testimonies of love have been incorporated and will shine from the wall until mid-October 2022 or longer.

Funded by: ENW – as part of Kunst am Bau Reininghaus | F.ACT – as part of the multi-part series “CITY|HOSPITAL”.

Photos: Raphael Daum / Nicole Pruckermayr

Nicole Pruckermayr grew up in Upper Austria, studied architecture, visual culture and art anthropology in Graz and Vienna. She lives as a freelance artist, initiator, curator, teacher and project manager in Graz and Niederöblarn. She prefers to think and work with social and physical spaces/places, the people/human bodies acting in them, their genders and needs. She is particularly interested in the ability to act on various levels and the skin in the most diverse facets, both of people and objects.