In archaic culture, fairy tales and fantastic literature, the forest is regarded as a projection surface for wishes, fantasies, fears and visions that can always be re-modelled.
It separates the settlement, which is kept under human control, from the uncertain, the threatening but the promising. It is a place that captures, without horizons, marked by fear. But in this way it constitutes a framework for the transformation and further development of the heroes. Its experienced transcendence proves to be a characteristic of the forest – the long, seemingly endless life of the trees demarcates itself from the finiteness of human life. This place, which carries reflection on human existence, now offers space for the ambivalent unfolding of good and evil.
„Vor einem großen Walde is a project about human limitations, highlighted by the mystification of the landscape. It constructs itself from memories, fantasy and raven calls at the edge of a forest.

Dalmonia Rognean was born in 1993 in Brașov, Romania and has lived in Vienna since 2012.
During her studies in theatre, film and media studies at the University of Vienna, which she completed in 2016, she developed her interest in documentary and conceptual photography. In doing so, she is interested in social and cultural-anthropological themes, which she explores visually through philosophical approaches.
She is currently about to complete her degree in “Photography and Audiovisual Media” at the Graphische in Vienna.