"The residency in Libken was entitled «into the fields». I took this at its word and went on extensive forays through the landscape shaped by the Ice Age. Always with me: binoculars, camera and audio recorder."
Sophie Innmann completed her studies at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe in 2014 as a master student of Leni Hoffmann. She has lived and worked without a permanent residence since 2015. Her project-related residencies have taken her to Paris, Barcelona, Minneapolis, Moscow, Yogyakarta, Plovdiv, Elefsina and Berlin, among other places. Following the logic of this way of life, Innmann is interested in network structures, the archiving of action, appearance and disappearance.
Her works manifest in different media, which are based on the respective necessity of the work. Since 2019, she has been researching new ways of experiencing contemporary art with the longterm project GoArtist and trying to initiate a critical discourse on unreflected digital consumption. An important part of Innmann's artistic practice is networking artists, be it in joint projects or exhibitions curated by her, such as ANTHROPOZÄNTA. Her work has been shown internationally, including the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, the Kunsthalle Basel, the Museum of Modern Art Moscow and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. In 2020, she received a working grant from Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn.
https://sophieinnmann.com/
Instagram: @sophie_innmann
The residency in Libken was entitled «into the fields». I took this at its word and went on extensive forays through the landscape shaped by the Ice Age. Always with me: binoculars, camera and audio recorder. In addition to the wildlife, in particular the abundance of bird species, the so-called “Sölle” immediately aroused my interest. Sölle are indentations in the ground formed by blocks of ice that have been covered with sediment. They are popularly known as “eyes”. From then on, I used my binoculars to observe the goings-on in and around the holes, as well as the moon and the starry night sky with passing satellites and the International Space Station (ISS). Just as we observe stars in the night sky through a telescope and thus see into times gone by, as the light from the stars took thousands of years to reach the earth, so the Sölle are the eyes into a time thousands of years ago on our earth. Today they are a habitat for numerous species and a refuge for game, if they want to escape the field of vision of the hunters who let their eyes roam over the fields through binoculars. I finally made these connections visible in the video installation Feldblende (Die Augen).
In addition, I created the site-specific video work 20250410-1831-1854-LibkenC5, which deals with the building of Libken and its embedding in the landscape, its history and that of its inhabitants. It is a panel house from 1965, in which workers from the local agricultural production cooperative (LPG) lived during the GDR era. This artistic practice was expanded and localized through intensive interaction with the other scholarship holders: in nightly discussions, our group of women talked about what we had read, what we had seen together and shared experiences relating to the meaning of life, human existence, time, light, the universe and transience.
Along the way, we built a sauna, which was handed over to the residents just in time by the end of the residency. Friendships were formed and further collaborations are already planned. My thanks go to the operators and organizers, who laid the foundations for this intensive time with their energy, commitment and expertise, as well as to my flatmates in Libken for this wonderful, unforgettable and unique time.
Photography, top:
Ika Nurcahyani
Description:
GoArtist, ongoing artistic research project, started in 2019 at Cemeti - Institute for Art and Society Yogyakarta, by invitation of Goethe-Institut Indonesia.
Photographies below:
Sophie Innmann, © 2025 VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Descriptions:
- Sophie Innmann, Feldblende (Die Augen), 2025, Full HD Video, 18:37 minutes. Exhibition view open studio BBK Brandenburg, Libken e.V., 2025.
- Sophie Innmann, 20250410-1831-1854-LibkenC5, 2025, Full HD Video, 22:50 minutes. Exhibition view open studio BBK Brandenburg, Libken e.V., 2025.
- Sophie Innmann / Jitka Králová / Belia Zanna Geetha Brückner / Markéta Fagan / Katarzyna Łyszka Łyszkowska / Gabriela Piwar, Sauna, 2025, Hazelnut twigs, clay, straw, oven. Donation to Libken e.V., 2025.
