Dreamer (Wie tief ist die Zeit?) 2018

Dreamer (Wie tief ist die Zeit?)

The new building for the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW in Muttenz opened in 2018. During the final phase of construction, Katja Schenker cast the monolith Dreamer (Wie tiefist die Zeit?), with a height of nearly 11 m, on site in the glass-roofed atrium. Progressively she filled a four-sided formwork layer by layer with a lightly colored concrete mixture interspersed with pebbles, chunks of rock, branches, tree trunks, rootstocks, lumps of coal as well as pieces of asphalt and iron slag–all found objects she had personally collected over two years in various parts of Switzerland. After the intended height had been reached, 17 cm were cut from the exterior of each wall with a diamond wire saw, creating smooth surfaces that reveal the carefully embedded objects. The beautiful cross-sections expose a remarkable variety of compositions and subtle colors. In contrast to the smoothness of the four side walls that form a  2 × 2 m square ground plan, the top is jagged and unpolished. Dreamer represents the artist’s largest and most ambitious KunstundBau project to date.

Katja Schenker

Katja Schenker (*1968 St. Gallen) lives and works in Zurich. Her artistic media include performance, drawing, sculpture, and installation. She works primarily with natural materials, valuing their diversity of forms and properties, their subtle richness of color, and above all their formation through natural history which manifests the inherent temporal dimension of these processes. Her artworks can be found throughout Switzerland. She has been acknowledged as an artist by numerous awards including the Swiss Performance Art Award and she is a three-time recipient of the Swiss Art Award.

Title: Dreamer (Wie tief ist die Zeit?)
Date made: 2018
Artist: Katja Schenker (*1968)
Materials: Concrete, wood, stones, metals
Dimensions: 1100 × 206 × 206 cm
Standort: Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz Campus Muttenz
Entstehung: Competition
Sammlung: Hochbauamt Basel-Landschaft / Bau- und Umweltschutzdirektion Canton of Basel-Landschaft