#2186, from the series FECHER, 2022-23
#2186, from the series FECHER, 2022-23
Awe might be the right word to describe the feeling I had for the activists in the Fechenheim Forest. The fact that I felt this way showed me how incapable I perceived myself to be, how little confidence I had in myself, and how much I would need to learn in order to transition into action. Are we really as independent as we sometimes believe? If so, why is so little being done in the face of the many problems our societies confront? Neoliberal ideology and the capitalist system keep us trapped in immaturity and a false sense of freedom. Yet only a few dare to step onto uncertain ground, to explore new paths, to experiment, and to take action.
That day, the mood was dark and somber; it was late December. The sun was low, and its last light filtered through the bare branches and trunks of the small Fechenheim Forest. The cold crept from my feet up my legs into my chest, and as usual, I was only for half a day in the forest to take photos. As dusk began, it was time for me to leave. At a small treehouse, barely a few meters above the ground, I took my last pictures of some trees. An older person from the forest strolled over and playfully joked with a young activist. But the jokes couldn’t mask the seriousness everyone felt. There was a smell of sweet alcohol and weed in the air, and the older person’s expression turned serious: "Why are they making such a fuss? Why are they building a fortress out of containers, what’s all this heavy equipment for? How many of us are there? Fewer than twenty people. Do we look dangerous, are we armed? What have we done to anyone? What’s the barbed wire for?" The person bent down, picked up a dirty, old, small liquor bottle from the ground, and held some decaying leaves in the other hand. It stuffed the leaves into the bottle and held it up, slightly swaying. "Is this what they’re afraid of? A Molotov cocktail of the forest?"
#2186, from the series FECHER, 2022-23
Awe might be the right word to describe the feeling I had for the activists in the Fechenheim Forest. The fact that I felt this way showed me how incapable I perceived myself to be, how little confidence I had in myself, and how much I would need to learn in order to transition into action. Are we really as independent as we sometimes believe? If so, why is so little being done in the face of the many problems our societies confront? Neoliberal ideology and the capitalist system keep us trapped in immaturity and a false sense of freedom. Yet only a few dare to step onto uncertain ground, to explore new paths, to experiment, and to take action.
That day, the mood was dark and somber; it was late December. The sun was low, and its last light filtered through the bare branches and trunks of the small Fechenheim Forest. The cold crept from my feet up my legs into my chest, and as usual, I was only for half a day in the forest to take photos. As dusk began, it was time for me to leave. At a small treehouse, barely a few meters above the ground, I took my last pictures of some trees. An older person from the forest strolled over and playfully joked with a young activist. But the jokes couldn’t mask the seriousness everyone felt. There was a smell of sweet alcohol and weed in the air, and the older person’s expression turned serious: "Why are they making such a fuss? Why are they building a fortress out of containers, what’s all this heavy equipment for? How many of us are there? Fewer than twenty people. Do we look dangerous, are we armed? What have we done to anyone? What’s the barbed wire for?" The person bent down, picked up a dirty, old, small liquor bottle from the ground, and held some decaying leaves in the other hand. It stuffed the leaves into the bottle and held it up, slightly swaying. "Is this what they’re afraid of? A Molotov cocktail of the forest?"
Rattenfalle II
Sculpture
Bait station, PE film, steel cable
80x40x20
Rattenfalle II
Sculpture
Bait station, PE film, steel cable
80x40x20
Rattenfalle I
Sculpture
Bait station, PE film, woody shrub, soil
40x25x55
Rattenfalle I
Sculpture
Bait station, PE film, woody shrub, soil
40x25x55
Compilation
C-Print, acrylic glass, sound
Various sizes
The visual space of the internet merges disparate locations, times, and constellations into a seemingly global unified space, where brutality and banality often collide directly. Technical images create an illusion of reality—a constantly renewing mirage.
In his engagement with the phenomenon of “compilations”—video montages connected by humor, tragedy, or topicality—Haustein examines the mechanisms of these digital image worlds. In particular, “fail compilations” focus solely on moments of failure, rendering location, time, and context meaningless. The sheer volume and fleeting nature of such clips lead to randomness and a reduced attention span.
Haustein addresses this ephemerality by creating screenshots from the videos, freezing fleeting moments in time. His subjects detach from their original content, lending incidental details a concentrated presence. By intertwining banal scenes with tragic or catastrophic moments, they evade clear interpretation.
The solo exhibition Compilation at the Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen features the works IMG_7797, IMG_7816, and IMG_7814 (150 x 120 cm), along with the sound composition Rogue Wave (duration: 16:42 minutes), all derived from the same video sequence. The original footage captures a massive rogue wave crashing onto a ship. In Haustein’s works, the natural disaster appears as blue variations. The original video sound is stretched in the sound composition to achieve a transformation similar to that of the screenshots. The composition consists of a simple triad combined with two-tone variations, modulated in pitch. The sound recalls wave movements and is presented in stereo, with two high-resolution speakers facing the wall-mounted works in the space.
The series IMG_6015 - 6019 (48 x 27 cm) depicts a landscape with varying color and brightness moods. The starting point is video footage of the detonation of the Tsar Bomba, where Haustein shifts the destructive force of the explosion into the background in favor of eerie lighting moods.
Other works, such as IMG_6913 (60 x 60 cm), depict an interior with a couch, while IMG_5177 (76 x 135 cm) shows a building with a terrace, a dark sky, and the sea, along with a hinted human presence. In IMG_5981 (68 x 85 cm), a forest landscape appears with a country road, a car, and a silhouette.
Compilation
C-Print, acrylic glass, sound
Various sizes
The visual space of the internet merges disparate locations, times, and constellations into a seemingly global unified space, where brutality and banality often collide directly. Technical images create an illusion of reality—a constantly renewing mirage.
In his engagement with the phenomenon of “compilations”—video montages connected by humor, tragedy, or topicality—Haustein examines the mechanisms of these digital image worlds. In particular, “fail compilations” focus solely on moments of failure, rendering location, time, and context meaningless. The sheer volume and fleeting nature of such clips lead to randomness and a reduced attention span.
Haustein addresses this ephemerality by creating screenshots from the videos, freezing fleeting moments in time. His subjects detach from their original content, lending incidental details a concentrated presence. By intertwining banal scenes with tragic or catastrophic moments, they evade clear interpretation.
The solo exhibition Compilation at the Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen features the works IMG_7797, IMG_7816, and IMG_7814 (150 x 120 cm), along with the sound composition Rogue Wave (duration: 16:42 minutes), all derived from the same video sequence. The original footage captures a massive rogue wave crashing onto a ship. In Haustein’s works, the natural disaster appears as blue variations. The original video sound is stretched in the sound composition to achieve a transformation similar to that of the screenshots. The composition consists of a simple triad combined with two-tone variations, modulated in pitch. The sound recalls wave movements and is presented in stereo, with two high-resolution speakers facing the wall-mounted works in the space.
The series IMG_6015 - 6019 (48 x 27 cm) depicts a landscape with varying color and brightness moods. The starting point is video footage of the detonation of the Tsar Bomba, where Haustein shifts the destructive force of the explosion into the background in favor of eerie lighting moods.
Other works, such as IMG_6913 (60 x 60 cm), depict an interior with a couch, while IMG_5177 (76 x 135 cm) shows a building with a terrace, a dark sky, and the sea, along with a hinted human presence. In IMG_5981 (68 x 85 cm), a forest landscape appears with a country road, a car, and a silhouette.
Pilze
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
I go into the forest to search for and collect mushrooms. Then I dry the fruiting bodies. As a final step, I create a multitude of photographs of the dried mushrooms to render a portrait. Nothing remains of the former appearance; it gives way to another.
The archive currently comprises over 120 species, depicted in high-resolution portraits. Anonymous titles create a distinct categorization level that conceals the scientific names. The final digit in each title indicates the number of photographs used to compose the final portrait.
Pilze
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
I go into the forest to search for and collect mushrooms. Then I dry the fruiting bodies. As a final step, I create a multitude of photographs of the dried mushrooms to render a portrait. Nothing remains of the former appearance; it gives way to another.
The archive currently comprises over 120 species, depicted in high-resolution portraits. Anonymous titles create a distinct categorization level that conceals the scientific names. The final digit in each title indicates the number of photographs used to compose the final portrait.
Mainwasser
Sculptures
Clay, PE film, water from the Main River, phosphat, nitrat, algae, fungi, microorganisms
40x15x60
Portraits
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
Mainwasser
Sculptures
Clay, PE film, water from the Main River, phosphat, nitrat, algae, fungi, microorganisms
40x15x60
Portraits
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
FECHER
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
Dennis Haustein devotes his photographic longterm project Fecher to observing a forest occupation that took place in a small forest area near Frankfurt am Main. The aim of the occupation was to prevent the planned construction of a motorway tunnel by Autobahn GmbH and to protect the species-rich habitat from being destroyed. In his work, for which Haustein accompanied the occupation in the Fechenheim Forest for over six months, he examines the various forces and actors - both human and non-human beings - intersect.
The forest activists in Haustein's work appear as a heterogeneous group originating from different economic strata, social backgrounds, and sometimes precarious living situations. These individuals, who fall through normative societal frameworks, develop practices of collaboration, care, and political action to protect present and future life. They create a structure in which responsibility for other life forms and the forest is assumed. In contrast, state efforts to expand the motorway largely disregard the interests of the people living there, displacing their habitat. These developments exacerbate current crisis, including global warming and species extinction.
The occupation ultimately ended with an eviction through a massive police operation. Haustein sees the occupation of the Fechenheim Forest as a small but pointed moment where significant societal conflicts and crisis converge, which are driven by neoliberal capitalism. The increasing precariousness of life on various levels poses an growing threat, undermining the scope for action, the capacity for change, and the future of life.
FECHER
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
Dennis Haustein devotes his photographic longterm project Fecher to observing a forest occupation that took place in a small forest area near Frankfurt am Main. The aim of the occupation was to prevent the planned construction of a motorway tunnel by Autobahn GmbH and to protect the species-rich habitat from being destroyed. In his work, for which Haustein accompanied the occupation in the Fechenheim Forest for over six months, he examines the various forces and actors - both human and non-human beings - intersect.
The forest activists in Haustein's work appear as a heterogeneous group originating from different economic strata, social backgrounds, and sometimes precarious living situations. These individuals, who fall through normative societal frameworks, develop practices of collaboration, care, and political action to protect present and future life. They create a structure in which responsibility for other life forms and the forest is assumed. In contrast, state efforts to expand the motorway largely disregard the interests of the people living there, displacing their habitat. These developments exacerbate current crisis, including global warming and species extinction.
The occupation ultimately ended with an eviction through a massive police operation. Haustein sees the occupation of the Fechenheim Forest as a small but pointed moment where significant societal conflicts and crisis converge, which are driven by neoliberal capitalism. The increasing precariousness of life on various levels poses an growing threat, undermining the scope for action, the capacity for change, and the future of life.
some lives on earth
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
In his work some lives on earth, Dennis Haustein explores the precarious qualities of life. He draws on the concept of contamination as described by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing in her book The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins and delves deeply into its examination. Contamination is understood here as a fundamental property shared by all life on Earth, a mutual “touchedness” and complex entanglement of countless stories of destruction, struggle, peaceful coexistence, and chance encounters.
Haustein’s developed perspective and observations undertake a search to formulate an aesthetic rooted in the impure, the trace-like, and what remains of life. Driven by an era in which life has been profoundly altered and endangered by numerous human interventions and capitalist practices (referred to as the Capitalocene), he is especially interested in investigating “dirty ecologies” and capturing their fragile beauty. His focus lies on the interconnected, the hybrid, the diseased, and the ruinous, distancing himself from conservative notions of supposedly primeval natures. Central to his work is the fundamental vulnerability that forms the basis of all life, and he seeks to explore its mutability, transience, and concurrent fragility in our age.
some lives on earth
Pigment print, steel
Various sizes
In his work some lives on earth, Dennis Haustein explores the precarious qualities of life. He draws on the concept of contamination as described by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing in her book The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins and delves deeply into its examination. Contamination is understood here as a fundamental property shared by all life on Earth, a mutual “touchedness” and complex entanglement of countless stories of destruction, struggle, peaceful coexistence, and chance encounters.
Haustein’s developed perspective and observations undertake a search to formulate an aesthetic rooted in the impure, the trace-like, and what remains of life. Driven by an era in which life has been profoundly altered and endangered by numerous human interventions and capitalist practices (referred to as the Capitalocene), he is especially interested in investigating “dirty ecologies” and capturing their fragile beauty. His focus lies on the interconnected, the hybrid, the diseased, and the ruinous, distancing himself from conservative notions of supposedly primeval natures. Central to his work is the fundamental vulnerability that forms the basis of all life, and he seeks to explore its mutability, transience, and concurrent fragility in our age.