Through a performative walk in which she embodies the Austrian naturopath Florian Berndl, Helen Weber proposes a journey through the Donaustadt district, tracing the marks of its horticultural history. Accompanied by the sonic atmosphere created by Ulla Mueller the artist unveils a chronology of local narratives: from the Lebensreform movement of the 19th century and the development of Donaupark for the WIG 64, to the current rise of luxury real estate developments in the surroundings of the Old Danube. Weber’s work suggests that within the ongoing cycle of urban expansion and “progress”, where peripheries shift toward the center and alternative forms of knowledge are absorbed into the canon, there remain interstitial spaces where the tensions of this “evolution” persist. In the garden, these seemingly disconnected dichotomies find a “natural” synthesis: exercise and rest, hygiene and freedom, nature and nationalism, geometry and magic, spectacle and introspection, leisure and labor, or the public versus the private. With acuity, Weber underscores that the roles and customs we normalize from the metropolis are inextricably linked to the rural. Ultimately, the work reminds us of our duality: we are, at once, the subject that aspires to be infinite and superior to its environment, and the one that acknowledges its inevitable return to nature, in the form of matter.

WALK WITH TEXT: June 19, 2025, 7-9 pm
MEETING POINT: Schmetterlingswiese Donaupark, 22nd District, Vienna, 6:45pm