In the exhibition Geister (ghosts) at SCOTTY, Carla Åhlander and Pauline Kraneis deal with constructions of memory. The starting point for their works are biographical finds, the photo of a mountain in the Alps, an address in London – concrete places that became the occasion for a search.

The shadow cast by a garden gate in London is the starting point for Pauline Kraneis‘ work 50 Netherhall Gardens. With her spatial drawing, which she developes for SCOTTY´s exhibition space, Kraneis brings the intangiblility of appearance into physically experienced space. In this way, she anchors the fleetingness of a memory of her birthplace in London in the now and translates the shadow of the garden gate into a drawing on the window and floor of the exhibition space.
Carla Åhlander’s work The Idea of a Mountain tells the story of a journey and search for a mountain she has found in an old slide image in the remains of her father’s. Åhlander embarks on a journey to find the place she has seen in the picture. The journey takes her to Switzerland and the Alps, where she continues her search for the right mountain and for the same perspective as in the original photo from the 1950s. We get to follow her searching process on the images of the slide installation, moving back and forth in different times and spaces.
Both works reflect the medium of photography, which is the pivotal point of both stories, and which paradoxically obscures but also clarifies our memories, pointing to a longing for something that no longer exists.

image: © Carla Åhlander, The Idea of a Mountain, 2016, giclee print, 70 x 100 cm