Archive catalogue, 304 pages
Today, the now 127 “bodies of her work” have found their organized form in the pink-tinted archive of this book:
from conceptual, multilayered, humorous, and “really good” works to discarded, non-representative, and so far unseen ones. Also included are textual translations of time-based media into book form – those voices, off-texts, and subtitles that appear in her sound, performance, and video works.
For about 25 years, Miriam Bajtala has been developing her many-layered, partly autobiographical body of work, engaging with themes of perception, memory, (self-)empowerment, witnessing, and representation through the media of video, video installation, drawing, photography, and performance. She often situates her works within spaces – both concrete ones such as apartments as well as social and cultural spaces. She asks questions about constructions of identity and the mechanisms of social attribution: “What does it mean to be disadvantaged, to come from a family with little economic capital, little cultural education, and a migration ‘foreground’?” As an artistic method, she repeatedly involves other people in her works, allowing her and their experiences to interact in reciprocal feedback loops.
The artist’s book Bodies of My Work, now present as a processed archive, invites both chronological reading and nonlinear exploration. The extensive volume, containing over 400 illustrations, includes texts by the artist herself as well as contributions by Claudia Slanar, Jens Kastner, and Sabine Winkler.
Publisher, Editing: Miriam Bajtala
Texts: Miriam Bajtala, Jens Kastner, Claudia Slanar, Sabine Winkler
Translations: Duncan Bare, Gerrit Jackson, David Quigley
Copy editing German: Sarah Rinderer
Graphic Design: Annja Krautgasser
Image Editing: Christoph Edenhauser
Font: Blender (Binnenland)
Printed by: Gugler Auflage Edition: 500
Cover image: Bodies of my Work
The title of the book refers to the work with the same name [WVZ 99].
© 2024 Miriam Bajtala & Fotohof Salzburg
© Photographs, page 301
© Texts authors All rights reserved
No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the express permission of Miriam Bajtala and the publisher.
Publisher & Distribution
FOTOHOF EDITION Salzburg
ISBN 9783903334724
Texts from Claudia Slanar, Jenst Kastner and Sabine Winkler - see text