103. ALMA STRITT: A SPACE BETWEEN ATTEMPT AND ATTEMPTING.

PREVIEW: M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) ISSUE 4 - RELEASED SPRING 2025.

'… my work, I would say is underpinned by this playful relationship with futility and trying to preserve the already gone.' A.S.

*Alma Stritt, ‘The central Line is experiencing difficulties (I) 05.05.24.’ Image courtesy of the artist. From a series published in M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) issue 4.*

The first time I remember seeing your work was a poem written in black biro pressed into gloss carmine red paper - like a miniature folded map - and then I think of scans of maize silk - the effect was that the threads were hovering in space... your processing of atmosphere is very pronounced…

I am definitely always in the mind of collecting, urgently trying to preserve an escaping moment (or atmosphere?) so that it can be returned to in some sense - knowing also this is not possible - at least not to an extent that I would find satisfying. Gathering (items) to suspend the passing of time, feels futile in its intent but still worth attempting, and most of my work I would say is underpinned by this playful relationship with futility and trying to preserve the already gone. It might also have something to do with sensory excess, and trying to come to terms with the dissatisfaction that it feels impossible to absorb a distinct atmosphere completely, I think I hope that collecting relics allows me to extend and re-examine time. I like to see my work as evidence in the aftermath of something which is still hanging in the air, residue of an event which once had an epicentre, heavily inspired by artists such as Sophie Calle and her Hotel Room series initiated in 1981. For reference - in her photographs, (later published in 2021 as ‘The Hotel’) she shared her experience as a hotel maid through serialised photographs of hotel rooms in disarray (with detailed forensic notes). She was fired from her job for her 'intrusions,' but her compilation of mundane observations remains completely extraordinary, and I return to them often. I also class some of my work as 'evidence collection' and a subsequent retracing of events. I look to resolve these projects as similar accumulative bodies of work which have a value much greater than the sum of their parts, imperfectly preserving something firmly tied to reality but also starting to move towards fiction.

*Alma Stritt, scanned maize silk, 2024. Made in collaboration with Madeleine Lacroix, Mariana Giedelmann, Tom Caley, Sohum Sharma and Nikhil Raut Suri.*

Your work using stickers is fascinating - I am very interested in the way your work using this medium engages with physical and emotional spaces...

I view the sticker works as images ‘escaping’ or resisting presentation formalities in physical and emotional spaces, also forcing me to share the spaces I move through with my printed images and re-examine them frequently. I think I began to, perhaps unfairly, view frames and glass panels as restrictions placed on images. How this reconciles with my wish to archive images, and preserve is an ongoing conflict in my work. From exploring Aby Warburg’s image panels (Mnemosyne Atlas), I adopted the practice of compulsively attaching images to physical surfaces into my own work for (in Warburg's words) 'interrogation' purposes in particular forcing images onto shared surfaces to initiate non-verbal image dialogue. Something seems to happen when images cohabit a physical space, and stickers are a great tool to practice this in shared public spaces. Stickers in public spaces are also exposed to temporal forces such as physical decay. When I think about stickers I think of what this means for the life of images, and how it represents the act of physical publishing, and the agency that is lost by the artist once images have been ’given life’. Some of my favourite sticker experiments are the ones in which I have been forced to return to my own images in public spaces and take in their defacement [see below]. The stickers are an attempt to resolve the unclear relationship between image and object.

Your use of bookbinding as a form of communication seems to be within evolution, a medium that you have been exploring for some time... what is it about making books that draws you back?

I view the books I have accumulated, and also make, as portable co-habitants with whom I share my physical space - their material presence, whether on a shelf, floor or as a doorstop feels important to me. When stored, they are covert, and can always be returned to - patient, and generous in this way. Maybe in some ways they are also alluringly efficient – compact (which has become important to my work, in referencing the feeling of being domestically relocated), and perhaps remaining prepared to be uprooted at short notice. It always struck me that when we moved [home] books were heavy, but the simplest to transport and find a place for in a new room. Books/catalogues are distributable, unassuming, unpretentious and ordinary. Everyone owns books and has space for books, and through binding it becomes possible to create objects from images. This is increasingly relevant to my work and my own understanding of my personal belongings. I am often wondering if I treat my images as 2-dimensional visual memory prompts or material objects. This is something I am continuing to explore.

As an image maker your use of photography is also very specific, the images within the next issue of M-A are all very idiosyncratic as they seem to all capture very precise moments in time that cannot be recaptured, in essence, they remind me of early photography in the sense that they seem to capture moments of magic, like phantoms or fairies...

All the images I take I would class as vernacular. I think again - on their own - none is particularly extraordinary, but as a group my images communicate a feeling of dissociation, perhaps that is the reason for their otherworldly feeling. As many are taken in haste, inevitably they capture fleeting moments, however imperfectly and in variable resolution. I continue to live with the unsettling feeling of being detached from my own memories around this time and trying to find my way back to them, or forward without them. Engaging in vernacular, observational photography feels grounding.

What are your signals for change?

I have been thinking about this for some time – referencing back to the reason I am drawn to portable work/books, seismic changes in my experience have often been sudden and uprooting. When I think back to the largest changes in my life, I did not, and perhaps could not, have see them coming. When I have determinedly tried to anticipate seismic change it has remained suspended in a fantasy world, which I then struggle to recognise, process and make tangible, when it doesn’t materialise. I am beginning to understand a lot of my work is coming to terms with expressing and valuing the loss of changes I had anticipated which never had the chance to exist, and where I can place that. Since beginning my practice, I have probably become a lot more resilient. I believe I am beginning to have to make peace with observing the signs of slow change. I sense I notice this when I enter a very familiar space and everything is as it always has been, but I feel quietly and privately different.

Alma Stritt

Alma Stritt is a contributing artist to the 4th issue of M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) published Spring 2025.

103. ALMA STRITT: A SPACE BETWEEN ATTEMPT AND ATTEMPTING.

PREVIEW: M-A (A SPACE BETWEEN) ISSUE 4 - RELEASED SPRING 2025.

'… my work, I would say is underpinned by this playful relationship with futility and trying to preserve the already gone.​' A.S.

104. GIUSEPPE PENONE: A SPACE BETWEEN OPEN AND CLOSE.

102. LEIGH BOWERY: A SPACE BETWEEN FLESH AND SOUL.

'… my work, I would say is underpinned by this playful relationship with futility and trying to preserve the already gone.' A.S.