Wolfgang Strassl

The backyard is an unusual social space, the appearance of which, upon closer inspection, tells us a great deal about the people who use that space. Unlike most urban spaces, it tends not to have been intentionally created and designed as a living space and was initially nothing more than an empty area left between the surrounding buildings. However, residents use it as open space, assigning it different meanings and functions, and furnishing it with various things. This process of appropriation and design is often less planned and purposeful, and more spontaneous and intuitive. For this very reason, it reveals a lot about the subconscious attitudes and needs of the people who use this space. Wolfgang Strassl examines the reality of these urban subjects, which are only superficially banal and trivial, and his photographs depict these spaces detached from such attributions as still lifes arranged without design in all their ambiguous, surreal, and poetic depth.