The concept of BODY_works follows the explorative examination of the body through the use of media. The body is always subject and object at the same time. The working body speaks in images and ultimately speaks about itself, in which the central transition of mediality becomes recognizable. Furthermore, BODY_works does not follow any particular goal of reducing the body to a specific form, but deals with the openness of this form itself. Accordingly, the project does not answer questions, but poses them, thereby visualizing the fluidity of the body and its inseparability from its work.
From the question of the relationship between body and (artistic) work arises the complexity of the endeavor to let the body work from a variety of possible perspectives, although the works spring from the subjective perspective of the artist.
The concept of work, i.e. “work”, describes both the work of the body as a living being and the body as an art-creating, i.e. working body, as well as the role of the body in the context of artistic work, its effect in relation to medium, space, light and sound. In addition, BODY_works also questions the role of the artist, as can be seen in the sample images, which are exclusively self-portraits. Through the depiction of the artist’s own body, the boundaries between the photographing body and the photographed body become blurred; the working body itself becomes part of the work, whereby the medium is no longer defined on the basis of an artistic technique, but exclusively by the body itself. Above all, the relationship between body, movement and sound, as well as the influence of spaces, technology and media on the depicting and depicted body are further aspects to be explored in the engagement with photography. BODY_works is thus an ongoing working and learning process that also involves the viewing person in the explored relationship of tension, whereby the viewing body also becomes part of the work.
These image samples are excerpts from the 25-part series of hand-drawn silver gelatin prints that are the main component of the project to date.

Alba Malika Belhadj Merzoug, 21 years old and born in Salzburg, is currently enrolled in the Design and Visual Education course in the Photography and New Media class at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. After graduating from the Musisches Gymnasium with a focus on dance, she dedicates herself to her passion from childhood days, photography, in search of artistic answers to questions of everyday life, which have already been exhibited at the Galerie das Zimmer and the Museum der Moderne Rupertinum Salzburg. In her work with text, as well as analog and digital photography, she questions herself and the medium of photography itself for its possibilities, voids and challenges, always marked by a direct physical reference. Based on self-portraits, documentary experiments and portraits, the artist’s view of apparatus and body opens up, which align with each other in artistic practice.