Society of Friends Guided Tour @ Hallein

After an initial introduction to the teachers given in the lounge by Hildegund Amanshauser, the society made their way through the different classrooms at the Alte Saline in Hallein. They started in the class carrying the title Extremes in Photography, run by Elfie Semotan and Roberto Ohrt. Every morning, they spend about 2 hours with their students solely discussing their projects.
‘They want to show them different extremes of photography, like the highly polished works of LaChapelle and the seemingly sloppy images taken by Miroslav Tichý, and let their students experience a professional photo shoot by transferring one, complete with high-end clothing, to the Alte Saline. Ines Doujak, who teaches the class It’s not easy being green, says she only sees her students at their planning meetings as most of them went up with the elevator on the first day and spread over the other floors of their classroom. The solely female class works with different materials, trying to find the difference between nature and culture. So far they seem to have found a lot, as they will be holding an exhibition and a performance for the coming Tuesday at 3.30 pm. The garden magazine they had planned in the beginning has grown into something more, as well. After this class, it seems logical to move on to the one called Where’s the Garden? held by Véronique Faucheur and Marc Pouzol, together forming Atelier le balto. The class began with sending the students outside to select a spot on the island, and then bring back their impressions to further work with them. “At first they don’t know, but that spot becomes theirs, they experience it, research it, play with it … “ explains Marc Pouzol. They also want to use computers as sparingly as possible, as they feel that their field, landscape architecture, has partly lost its artistic soul due to the increased use of technology. Next, the society went to visit the workspace Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekman. The students of their class, titled Plasticine Animation as a Sculptural Experience, were busy finishing their figurines and stages, as they soon need to start the actual shooting process. The class split itself into four groups working on different projects, one of them being a rendition of the history of the salt-town Hallein, replacing salt with cocaine. Wanting to keep the post-production to a minimum, the workload ahead of them is immense, but as their teachers say, everybody is very inspired by the building and its atmosphere. The society then went up one floor to visit Sonja Abian and her class, who are working under the motto The Picture as a Point of Intersection. This means a new interpretation of classical paintings, connecting them to contemporary images and contexts. Some of the students use paintings they found in a museum in Hallein, depicting the story of the salt production that dominated the town for centuries. Other brought their own images to the class. They all try to build connections, thinking of how the images are seen and how they change with time. They also had models visiting some incorporate into their works. As the still-life class of Ulrica Lundberg had already closed, the tour ended in the jewellery workshop set up Manuel Vilhena. For him, it is important that the students learn to see contemporary jewellery as an art, a mode of artistic expression equal to others like painting and sculpture. They employ traditional techniques while using all kinds of materials to make beautiful pieces that also contain meaning. After watching the students craft their pieces, people rounded off the very interesting and informative evening with a glass of wine in the lounge.