Projects

butkeim

"butkeim" is the Hebrew word for parking attendant's huts. In Tel Aviv you can find them on every second corner, normally with a parking lot full of cars. The photographs of those huts are made on Friday evenings at sunset when in Israel Shabbat begins. Although the normally very moving city is quiet and extinct for 24 hours the small, very individually, sporadically built and decorated houses are illuminated by incident light.

Modelle

The goal here was to capture buildings from an unusual point of view: from above. It's about catching the perfect moment of the interaction between moving urban life and fixed structures and lines of the architectural surrounding. The shift in perspective makes our perception of space, location and scenery change. The solid, strong and enormous structures of steel and concrete become slender and fragile for a moment.

La Confluence

A selection of this project is currently exhibited (4/5 - 1/9/2019) at Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) Frankfurt a.M. and at Kasseler Architekturzentrum KAZimKUBA (6 - 17/11/2019) in the context of this year's European Architecture Photography Prize. The new quarter La Confluence covering 150 hectares in Lyon, France, is located where the two rivers Rhône and Saône meet. It is situated next to the centre of the city within the second "arrondissement“ (district) and is planned to become a living area for around 16.000 inhabitants. About 25 years ago the city of Lyon announced an urban planning contest concerning the reconstruction of the area. The new concept is a great experiment planned to be finished in 2025: La Confluence is going to be the first entirely new quarter in the centre of a town in Europe of this dimension that unifies social housings, offices, stores, green spaces, university buildings and leisure facilities– all of this based on a concept of energy-efficiency. An eco-city of its own, a young, cutting-edge, energy-efficient form of architecture. There is a small number of existing historical buildings that are being renovated and responded to by the modern architecture. The name "La Confluence" therefore not only corresponds to the connection of the two rivers. It also refers to the intention of combining ecological living, social arrangements, different styles of architecture and progressive urban-planning. The photographic project La Confluence is an artistic examination of the visionary architecture. Taken between 2014 and 2017, a period in which the main buildings and structures of the new district were already completed, but settlement and urban design were still at the very beginning. At first there are only facades. Colours, structures, fascinating but inanimate scenery. An artificial, surreal world. Only very slowly people appear, almost imperceptibly between, in, beside the lifeless new buildings and take the new city for themselves. La Confluence is like a stage setting where the very few people are acting like extras. All the 36 photographs are combined in a photobook: http://www.mariehoffmann.net/albums/la-confluence-1/

Leise singende Frauen

The concept for this project was inspired by the novel "Leise singende Frauen“ (quietly singing women), written in 1992, by the German writer Wilhelm Genazino. The protagonist's attention is captivated by bizarre observations and events in everyday life, partly real, partly imaginary. A mind that is wandering, attracted by surprising and enigmatic situations and objects that create their own logic. A world between reality and dream. The photographs do not adopt situations from the novel as they are, but are based on the challenge to create images that make the viewer experience the concept of the novel. They are a mixture of scenes inspired by situations from the book, my own ideas and also situations I observed in the street.

350 Lumen

A project in collaboration with Teresa Pistorius. (teresapistorius.com) What is hiding behind the windows of an isolated house? How do fishes in an aquarium notice the world around them? Is there something dangerous lurking behind a wooden crate in the forest? The nightly view into strange dwellings calls up deep fear and fantasies. For this project we staged housings in a way that the inside is unknown. Showing that something is living there but where you can't tell what and how. Rooms being lived in by something invisible that has a magical influence on us- a classical horror film motive. We illuminated this motive in a neutral white glare to provoke ambivalent feelings: does something dangerous live there or does the housing rather embody shelter?