Interview with graduating student Ira Grünberger

Can you tell me about your graduation project?

My project is about reimagining and reinhabiting a house that can no longer be visited. When composing a house, its shell becomes like a carrier of our memories, with its materials witnessing our personal and physical (de)construction. To understand how these memories appear in construction materials, such as metal, glass and clay, and eventually decay and dissolve, I’ve been researching into merging photographic and elemental processes.

I am trying to visualize this through an installation and publication. Both contain various elements, such as blueprints on ceramic tiles, rust imprints on fabric, and image constructions. Most of them are based on floorplans and technical drawings my father created, and reappear in the installation as steel frames inspired by their shapes. The installation represents a constructed framework, which partly deconstructs itself. For example, images imprinted on metal plates slowly dissolve through vinegar dripping on them. In this sense I hope to create a more sensitive understanding towards building materials, by showing their potential as vessels for memory and embodied trauma.

How did the idea of the concept arise? Did you extend a previous project of yours?

This project combines a lot of notions that have been present in my research from the past years, so I definitely see it as an accumulation of partly very personal notions, and as a methodology that has been shaped by those explorations. I spend a lot of time reflecting on my influences through writing, which lead to my research paper "to carve a house between this mouth and this world", but also doing material research. What binds my work together is an interest in how both space and memory is (de)constructed, and how you can explore and bend the framework of photography similar to how we construct built space.

What is the process of graduation? (Presenting concepts, green light)

In the first semester the classes are mostly designed to understand where one´s interest comes from and in which direction to move towards. Commissioned work and research paper have to be produced simultaneously. Personally I really enjoyed this semester since it gave a lot of space to experiment and make connections. In the second semester it´s about finalizing and designing the research paper, and moving from an experimentation phase towards the execution of the project. An important moment is the green light, in which there is feedback on how the work communicates and if it can be executed in time.

What are you looking forward to after graduating?

To do things intentionally, and to do things at my pace. to collaborate, to expand, to continue my research. To think through making, to reconnect. Graduating feels so much like going back to the beginning and drawing a new circle.

How stressful is finishing the 4th year? (Sorry for this question)

Honestly I feel like each year has had very stressful moments, so I'm not sure if it is any more or less stressful. I think that really depends on your way of working and your personality. What could be stress-inducing challenges in the 4th year is for example the jump to a more self-organized way of working, but that also gives much more freedom. Or when you make work that is not understood by the department, or that you might not fully understand yourself (yet). There is a lot of decisions needed, a lot of trust, for sure a lot of patience.