The group exhibition Ortsbohrungen is dedicated to the artistic exploration of places – in both a literal and a metaphorical sense. The point of departure is drilling as a metaphor and as an action: as a penetration into layers of space, history, memory, and materiality. The participating artists reflect in their works on the possibilities and conditions of approaching a place. Both invasive gestures and sensitive forms of engagement with the hidden dimensions of a site are examined and addressed.
Rather than occupying places or leaving marks, the works seek connection with their surroundings. They listen, probe, and respond to spatial, social, and historical conditions. In this way, complex engagements with landscapes, architectures, and spaces of memory emerge – dimensions that lie beneath the visible surface. Drawing on Ernst Kapp’s theory of organ projection – the idea that technical tools are projections of the human body – the exhibition asks what is projected in the act of drilling: knowledge, control, injury, but also curiosity and empathy.
Ortsbohrungen understands artistic practice as a persistent questioning and uncovering of hidden or overlooked conditions of places. The exhibition no longer presents spaces as mere objects, but allows them to appear as active and autonomous agents. Künstler*innenhaus Dortmund provides an ideal framework for this: itself a place with many layers – shaped by industrial, social, and cultural histories.

Arhun Aksakal’s artistic practice includes film, sculpture, drawing, sound, and performance. His works trace the aftereffects of civilization, migration, and memory, made visible in decay, destruction, and the reorganization of architecture, infrastructure, and landscape.

www.instagram.com/arhunaksakal

Schirin Kretschmann works with performative gestures and painterly interventions. Her works understand architecture as an active body in which perception, material, and memory enter unstable processes of transformation and withdrawal.

www.schirinkretschmann.de

Alexandra Leykauf develops site-specific installations that respond sensitively to architectural and social conditions. Her works often emerge from research processes and engage with the tension between place, memory, and use.

www.alexandraleykauf.com

Lukas Marxt works with film and documentary strategies at the intersection of landscape, politics, and ecology. His works investigate how environmental crises, resource politics, and power relations intertwine, turning landscapes into political arenas. Through long-term research and close collaboration with local actors, he creates films that connect ecological processes with social and political dynamics. His works reveal how crises generate new forms of control, inequality, and negotiation.

www.lukasmarxt.com

Martin Schepers explores subterranean spaces, geological layers, and hidden structures through painting. His images address the seemingly invisible and negotiate painting as a process of uncovering and condensation.

www.martinschepers.de

Kathrin Sonntag investigates processes of perception and the relationship between image, space, and reality in her photographic installations. Her works oscillate between documentary precision and conceptual positioning, questioning the objectivity of photographic images.

www.kathrinsonntag.net