installation,
various materials, 2023/34

In her work, Lisa Hoffmann explores how complexities can be acknowledged, embraced and narrated. She investigates how social conventions and transformations manifest themselves in the environment and vice versa. Her installations resemble ecologies of references, stories, questions and hints in various media and materials.

Lisa Hoffmann’s installation “fragments of a fire story” consists of a network of objects, sculptures, sounds and projections that reflect the relationship between humans and fire up to the modern age. The work opens up perspectives on culture and art history, anthropology, mythology and natural sciences.

Projected on engraved glass, a female figure is waiting for her torch to be lit, smoke detectors pulsate with light while sounds mimic fire crackles. A hand merges into a giant fennel, recalling Prometheus's gift. The provocation of a cigarette, directed against a smoke detector, runs into the nothingness of the dimensions between an image and a projection. Blue lights reflect off trees. (…)

The encounter with fire necessarily entails new, mixed forms of knowledge. In view of the increasing number of global fire and other ecological disasters, human control over nature is once again being called into question. Despite increased media focus on forest fires, fire is no longer part of our landscapes and routines.