Mngrv (polymersday series)

2021
Archival inkjet prints, gum transfer prints with marine plastics, pigments
Framed diptychs, 53 x 78 cm each, unique 

Courtesy the artist 
Presentation with support from ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Kriemann has photographed mangrove forests in Southeast Asia entangled with plastic waste and oil spills. When making the final prints, the artist incorporates debris and oil collected from the places where the photographs were taken. The work explores how climate change and environmental pollution blur the boundaries between nature and culture. Growing at the edge between sea and land, the mangroves create sensitive ecosystems that change with the tidal flows. Kriemann’s images too inhabit an uncertain terrain—between photographic representation and material testimony. The imprints of the waste on the photographic paper appear concrete and ghostly at the same time, just as the plastic waste of consumer culture will inevitably come back to haunt us for generations to come.  

Susanne Kriemann (b. 1972, Germany) is an artist and professor of Artistic Photography at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe, as well as co-founder of the artist initiative AiR Berlin Alexanderplatz. Kriemann investigates the medium of photography in the context of social history and archival practice. Her work was exhibited at Kunsthalle Wien; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Arnolfini, Bristol; Kunstverein Braunschweig; Berlinische Galerie and MK&G Hamburg, as well as the 11th Shanghai, the 10th Gothenburg, the 5th Moscow, and 5th Berlin Biennials. She has also conceived seventeen artist books since 1998. 

Röda Sten Konsthall