As the curator of the Anxious to Make stream for transmediale 2016, part of my brief was to write a report on its outcomes or key highlights. Somehow a written report did not feel appropriate to a stream that dealt with making and aimed from the beginning to keep hold of the practitioners’ and artists’ viewpoints. Additionally reports tend to quantify outcomes and bring with them a set of assumptions and markers, which I was keen to avoid.

It was for this reason that I chose to write a short reflection and also invite photographer Lydia Goolia to collaborate on a photo essay—a standalone visual documentation of the people who participated in the stream.

Shot on location during the festival period (2-7 February 2016), the images use the architectural specificities of the HKW and raumlaborberlin’s exhibition design as a background to a collection of portraits and images, capturing the characters, objects, and humor of the stream participants.

As a visual essay reflecting on the stream it places emphasis on the participants’ tools, materials, and hands—the objects, sounds, code, paper, hardware, wood, wires, music, and physical bodies that bend, shape, and create.

A selection of five images can be seen here, but the full set is best viewed at: lydiagoolia.de/stories/photoessay-anxious-to-make