Back Stages, Troy
Back Stages: Troy
In Back Stages: Troy, Katrin Korfmann offers a sharp insight into the cultural production process as a collective endeavour. From a vertical perspective, she captures an archaeological dig in Troy, Turkey — a scene in which the past and present, labour and meaning, are made visible simultaneously. The absence of a clear focus on any single moment invites the viewer to consider the process of discovery and reconstruction as a dynamic whole, where time and action continuously influence each other.
The arrangement of people, tools, and ruins reads like a choreography of collaboration and inquiry. Whereas the classical image of the artist often centres on individual expression, Korfmann here presents the cultural maker as part of a broader network of actions, materials, and contexts. The artist is no longer portrayed as a solitary figure, but as a link within a complex system of collective creation and meaning-making.
Within her Back Stages series, Korfmann explores the invisible stages of the creative process. The final product is not the focus, but rather the conditions and actions that precede the emergence of cultural meaning. In these works, the process itself becomes the image: from conservation to interpretation, from digging to the deciphering of history. The works highlight the importance of the intermediary stages — the hidden phases that often escape the eye.
Back Stages: Troy is both documentary and abstract. The bird’s-eye view offers an ostensibly objective overview, yet subtle blurring of movement creates a temporal layer in the image — a tension between the momentary and the monumental. This creates a visual dynamism in which the work captures both the everyday and the timeless, while challenging the viewer to look beyond the surface.
By focusing on what often remains invisible — labour, organisation, and the intermediary stages — Korfmann redefines the archaeological site as a living workshop. In this process, identity, knowledge, and tradition are not only unearthed but also reshaped, thus exploring and reinterpreting cultural memory itself.