A park measuring 4 hectares in Penzing was hidden behind neverending brick walls for a long time. Now it is open to the public and its tall trees nestle around some 900 new apartments. A ceramic sculpture by Oktavia Schreiner celebrates the grandeur of this secret garden.

Artist Oktavia Schreiner's larger forest taps into the site's distinctiveness in a variety of ways: Her stacked ceramic segments reflect, in form and content, the mighty trunks of the surrounding trees as well as their rhythmization of space; the supporting steel framework engages in dialogue with the structured house facades; the ceramics' painted interior drawings likewise address the spatial interweaving of architecture and forest.

The resemblance of the individual segments to prayer wheels is intentional and, thus similar to them, functions as an incantation. The expressive-symbolistic coloring of the forest scenes in red and blue is also a kind of orphic symbolism. The multi-stage production process of the ceramics was carried out by the artist in 2021/22.

Text: Vitus Weh