Stefanie Pluta
STUDIO VISIT
Photography as a medium of documentation and encounter
Stefanie Pluta studied photography and media arts at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. Her works are created in the context of social and societal issues.
“Hello, my name is Stefanie Pluta. I am a media artist and I mainly work with photography. My works are usually created in the context of social or societal issues and reflect themes such as architecture, urban spaces or marginal phenomena or even the politics of public space
I think my relationship to photography is always different. It's somehow very fluid. Sometimes I use photography in a more documentary way and here with the scholarship, for example, it's more like a medium to get in touch with each other.
One of my current works entitled Temporary Places deals with the Botanic Garden as a post-colonial site, and I spent several years photographing the construction site of the new show greenhouses and documenting the surrounding construction fences. But I also worked with historical photographs from the Cologne city archives. These photographs clearly show how the botanical garden was used as a place of colonial education and research, as a place of appropriation and conquest of plants, but also of people.”
-
Storyboard (Palmtree), Inkjet Print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 29,7 x 42cm
© Stefanie Pluta
-
Storyboard (Cedar), Inkjet Print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 29,7 x 42cm
© Stefanie Pluta
-
Uape Jacana – a fiction, Inkjet Print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 18 x 27cm
© Stefanie Pluta
-
Philodendron Sellum, Inkjet Print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 42 x 59,4 cm
© Stefanie Pluta
“We are currently in my studio on the grounds of the Dormagen-Guffanti Center for the Disabled. I had a scholarship here for six months and was allowed to work in this studio. The scholarship is awarded every year to bring people with disabilities and people without disabilities together to meet and exchange ideas. I developed a cyanotype project with the residents. This is a photogram process in which an object is placed on a light-sensitive carrier and then exposed to sunlight, i.e. UV light. Not everything happened the way I imagined it in my head. I also had to throw a lot of the concept out the window again, but I then switched to simply taking up the impulses that the residents gave me and continuing to work with these impulses.”
More Studio Visits: ++
Studio Visits
With its museums, galleries and art spaces, Cologne offers a broad field of photography. Naturally, there is also a correspondingly large and diverse artist scene here that works and experiments with the medium. In our new section Studio Visits, we would like to introduce you to artistic positions and take you to the production and thinking spaces of art. Have fun!
