The construction of the past determines our image of the present

The story of an expedition

We find what we are looking for. Even the existence of another form of life can not be ruled out in principle, but it will never be discovered because we simply do not know what we are supposed to look for.

Things get their meaning and value from the context in which they are placed. This applies to works of art that have long been regarded as meaningless, such as the Salvator Mundi, as well as to various mineral resources.

The Residence in Krastal was used to find things that have the potential to be of significance . To shorten the process and to achieve the desired results, some finds have already been brought, others made during the expedition itself. The spectrum ranges from by-products of the artist's own and others' sculptural work, to minerals and fossils up to ancient-looking artefacts and articles of daily use made of stone or metal. In the course of the residency they were collected, arranged and displayed according with a museum iconography. The quarry became the site of remains of a culture that never existed, the Krastal sculptor's house became the museum of this culture that never existed.

The project borrows from the methodology of fake news and para-sciences such as pre-astronautics. Questioning the construction of history and how it is used to define homeland and ethnic identity, in the sense of the demarcation between the self and the other. The abuse of national costumes by politics in the past and present are illustrative examples to be mentioned.

With the space capsule, it remains unclear until the end, whether Claus Prokop arrived with it or it is a find or it maybe was built to fly away again.


www.clausprokop.at/