ISAR FRIES REWILDED

2026

Isar Fries, Rewilded transforms pebbles and stones collected from the Isar river (from Indo-Germanic “Die Reißende” – “The Rushing One”) into luminous bodies revealed through light. The work focuses on the Isar as a living, dynamic presence within the city of Munich. Once extensively straightened, channelled, and constrained, the riverbed has been rewilded in recent years. The dynamic flow of each pebble and stone has been shaped within this macro movement of liberation.

Exposed directly onto light-sensitive photographic paper, after development, the stones reveal their negative form. A simulation of the various shades of blue found in the Isar river was created through lighting experiments in the artist’s darkroom. The gradient and depth of blue symbolically embodies the space of the water, and when the series is viewed in sequence, the stones appear in motion, pushed and pulled by the river’s current. A frieze in motion.

What does this body of water hold and hide? What does it emanate and provide? Imagine the city without this artery. How differently would our bodies move through the city?