Dissolution is not disappearance
but a shifting, a dispersal, a survival in other forms: under the title You dissolve / It’s just another way you exist, the
University of Applied Arts Vienna will present works from its TransArts department at Vienna Contemporary 2025 from 11 to
14 September.
This exhibition gathers three artists, all graduates of
the TransArts department, whose works thematically explore the unstable space between presence and absence, remembering and
erasure, materiality and transformation, asking us to look closely at what dissolves but does not end, and to see how traces
endure in language, in space, and in form.
In
Range 2C00-2C5F,
Mariia Mihdieieva
revives a forgotten script, transforming the Glagolitic alphabet into a new typeface that slips between code and communication.
Her work confronts the politics of legibility—who can be read, who remains invisible—and reclaims space for voices at risk
of dissolving into silence.
Maja Bojanić’s
Yours is the world in which I move uninvited
traces the warmth of a body removed from the record books but not from memory. Through an infrared lens, the absent figure
of her great-grandmother, who was legally erased in 1992 during a state-sponsored deletion of thousands of Slovenian residents
from the permanent residency records, remains as a ghostly rhythm of life: as a residue of touch, breath and movement that
refuses to disappear.
In
eternal 24/7,
Katharina Birkmann turns to the fragile
figure of the snowman, a temporary being perpetually collapsing into water. Between play and disappearance, ecology and culture,
the snowman becomes a fragile monument—an emblem of how we mourn endings yet still strive to hold them in place.
Read together, these three practices articulate dissolution as a generative condition. Whether through scripts, bureaucratic
erasures, or ephemeral figures, the works are to be understood as a rejection of finality; they emphatically convey that what
dissolves also has permanence.
The Angewandte at Vienna Contemporary 2025:11 to 14 september
Booth F87Messe Wien
Trabrennstraße 7
1020 Vienna
Subway station U2 Krieau
TransArtsThe TransArts department (Institute of Fine Arts and Media Art) operates at
the intersection of art practice and art theory. Its teaching takes into account various forms of artistic expression (visual
arts, media art, literature, sound, architecture, performance, acting, etc.) that enter into dialogue with one another, influencing
and inspiring each other. In addition to the continuous support provided to students by the management team, lectures and
workshops are offered by visiting professors and internationally renowned personalities. In this way, the diversity of contemporary
art and art theory is conveyed in a memorable and practical manner. Continuity and changing perspectives enable TransArts
to offer a project-oriented, contemporary and at the same time forward-looking artistic education.
Biographies:
Katharina Birkmann (1998 in Berlin, DE) studied TransArts at the University of
Applied Arts Vienna and Textile and Surface Design at Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. Her works have been shown at venues
including Volkstheater Vienna, the Austrian Association of Women Artists (VBKÖ), the Austrian National Library, and Savvy
Contemporary, Berlin. In her artistic practice, she engages with material, temporality, and histories across sculpture, film,
and performance. She lives and works in Vienna.
https://katharinabirkmann.net/ Maja Bojanić (1997) is a visual artist whose practice explores the poetics and
politics of remaining. Her work interrogates whose narratives persist, whose fade away, and the forces that govern their visibility.
Her work has been presented internationally, including at Mumok Cinema, Vienna (2025); bb15, Linz (2025); Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana
(2024); VBKÖ, Vienna (2024); City Gallery of Nova Gorica (2024); aqb, Budapest (2022) and P74 Gallery, Ljubljana, where she
was twice shortlisted for the OHO Young Visual Artist Award (2023, 2024). She holds a BA in Sculpture from the Academy of
Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (2020) and an MA in TransArts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2025).
http://majabojanic.info/
@_majabojanic
Mariia Mihdieieva (b. 2001, Ukraine) holds a BA in Graphic Design
from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Fine Arts and an MA in Transdisciplinary Arts from the University of Applied
Arts Vienna. She works across textiles, painting, printmaking, design, and video, often combining handcraft with experimental
approaches. Her practice explores writing systems, languages, and migration in relation to memory, history, and technology.
Drawing on her own experience of displacement, she reflects on how scripts shape identity and cultural belonging, often resisting
easy translation and requiring active engagement from viewers. She has presented work at the Klima Biennale Wien (2024), the
Angewandte Festival (2023, 2025), and the International Eco Poster Triennial “The 4th Block” (2018).
@unreal.mari
