Corona Journal: Katja Strunz from Berlin

We asked artists around the world, who are close to the Haus am Waldsee through exhibitions, what their situation is like at the moment.

Katja Strunz (*1970), sculptor, lives and works in Berlin. In 2019 her work was shown under the aspect of folding in the exhibition “Beasts of the Times – Lynn Chadwick, Hans Uhlmann, Katja Strunz” at Haus am Waldsee.

Here her report:

Even before the first events were cancelled, we were able to celebrate my exhibition opening at Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin on March 6 with many friends and visitors. A few days later I already retired, but first to find some peace and quiet. My two boys, 8 and 11 years old, are now studying at home. The supervision and care now takes up a lot of time. But the children themselves are also good teachers for me: I am not the centre, not even my ego is mine. Let go – life happens through me.

After the weekly handover of the children to their father, I can devote myself to my work. The question of the purpose of art arises anew. For a few months now, I have been working in Markus Schaller’s studio – in a sculptor’s studio where we can now work independently and are currently finishing an outdoor sculpture for the sculpture park Schlossgut Schwante.

A few days ago, Otto Scharmer and Thomas Hübl talked online about the phenomenon of witnessing at a conference at Witten Herdecke University. It is very inspiring for me to deepen the aspect of witnessing for my own artistic work process – what it means to be a witness of time, to witness time, to internalize it – the studio as a container and place where reality becomes reality through being present.
It is obvious that such creative processes are also needed in everyday life: the involvement in a specific-unspecific situation, which one does not know where it leads to – away from all post and pre. Algorithms no longer help, but rather the activation of intention, because there has never been anything like it before.
In any case, my exhibition Space Lips at CFA can now be taken on a virtual tour.