Alexander Johannes Heil
Artist statement
My practice is defined by site specific performances and interventions, which refer to the global space, which I consider as one entity without any borders. I study the things I am interested in by direct observation, often using photography and film as a means of documentation. From my observations and theoretical research about space, ideas arise, which I transform into actual formal expression, resulting in artistic artifacts of any media, and often manifest in what I call a theory-based-immediate-reaction towards a given space. As an artist and architect, I as well tend to build models (digitally and physically) of the spaces I am working with. They serve me as catalysts for thought, while developing my artworks. However, the thinking process while making them is as important as the finished artifacts themselves. I see space as an entity to listen and to react to, rather than something to use at will. During my time at the ArtScience Interfaculty I might have become sort of an anti-architect, someone who is not filling space with things, but embracing space to leave it as it is, and emphasizing its existence as such. I initiate events-in-space, exploring how we could experience space as such.
Biography
Alexander Johannes Heil (born 1986 in Hamburg, Germany) received his B.Sc. in Architecture with a focus on architecture-theory and -design in 2017 at the Technical University Berlin. He is currently a master student at the ArtScience Interfaculty (Royal Conservatory and Royal Academy of Art, The Hague) and obtained his master’s degree (M.Mus) in summer 2020. His work has recently been shown at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague, the Royal Conservatory The Hague, in group exhibitions in The Hague, and two solo exhibitions in Berlin (2017 and 2018).