On Display! (MANUFACTUM NRW State Prize 2025)

Yesterday the exhibition of the MANUFACTUM NRW State Prize 2025 for Applied Arts and Design in the Crafts was opened. During my first participation in the thematic area of image and print media, I was able to make it into the exhibition and the catalog right away. The large format photographs (80 x 64cm), with the unusual title „Utility Areas – An Aesthetics Of The Marginal”, can be seen at the Museum of Art and Cultural History Dortmund until the end of September.

A brief explanation of the background to the images describes this as follows:

This series of aerial photographs is a visual exploration of the aesthetics of the „utility spaces“ of our modern comforts. This refers to the places that arise when we shape or deform the environment through infrastructure and service facilities for the production and maintenance of our current way of life.

Aerial photography is a suitable tool in this context, as it captures an overall impression from an unusual perspective. This view from above visually condenses the conflicts that arise in the shaping of cultural landscapes.

All photographs were taken from a two-person microlight aircraft between Münster, Dortmund and Hamm. (pilot: Rudolf Heise)