The ifk Arkade, the new space on the ground floor of the ifk, offers permanent employees of the University of Art and Design Linz the opportunity to organize a thematically fitting solo or group exhibition as part of a conference. This year it is the conference »Possessed«, which will take place from 25-27 March 2026. The ifk promotes approaches from artistic research that are combined with questions from cultural studies. The duration of the exhibition is approximately one month.
About the conference
Possession is more than just 'power over'. Possession also involves the pursuit, the haunting and the safeguarding of people, things and territories. This conference traces the traces of possession in spaces, bodies and relationships. We ask questions about the good and bad spirits that property creates and about the feedback loops that arise between possession and obsession.
Possession manifests itself as private property, as personal, intimate objects that provide a sense of security, or as a means of appropriation. Private property draws boundaries and excludes many from the means of survival, housing or participation. Personal objects, on the other hand, may be inalienable and intimate, but can still be painfully separated from ›their‹ owners. Gifts, relics or mementos permeate people and carry traces of emotions and stories. Sometimes these are no longer accessible to us, and sometimes we cannot resist them. Claims of ownership accompany violence and expansion, whether violence against bodies or through the appropriation of land and life. And sometimes possession seems trivial, in the form of countless anonymous objects that accumulate in our everyday lives.
At the centre of our discussion are questions of disposal and persecution, of access and refuge. New approaches from cultural studies and cultural anthropology – wether Hauntology, Bird-David's New Animism, Freud's uncanny, fetishism, new materialisms or nature cultures – show ways of thinking together about possession and mutual obsession with things and people. We want to combine these with the analysis of concrete situations and the traces of mutual haunting.
Examples such as »imperial debris« (Stoler 2013), which are stored in museums as colonial objects, or the personal legacies of victims of genocide and expulsion will be addressed, as well as situations of excess or completeness and the complementarity of persons and bodies.
Concept: Andreas Gehrlach (ifk), Andreas Streinzer (University of Vienna)
What you receive
The ifk has been able new space and is making available the large exhibition room in the basement and smaller areas in the lecture, break and seminar room. The space can be used either partially or entirely. The ground floor increases visibility in the public space and is accessible to a wide audience. For more information about the rooms, please click here.
What we expect
Selection process
A jury consisting of members of the ifk and the University of Vienna decides on admission.
In addition to the completed online form (see above), you must upload the following documents as a PDF file (max. upload size: 10MB):
Deadline for applications: 27 July 2025, 23:59 CET (time by which the completed form must be submitted with a PDF upload).
The decision on the award will be announced by 26 September 2025.
Please use Google Chrome or Firefox for submission.
Please always delete cache and cookies automatically, otherwise there may be problems filling in the online form.
If you have any questions that are not answered in the information sheet, on our website itself or in the online application form, please write to boog@ifk.ac.at or contact us by phone: +43 676 847 89 82 606.
For further information please contact Julia Boog-Kaminski (julia.boog@kunstuni-linz.at, +43 676 847 89 82 606)