Mein Traumhaus ist kein Haus

“Mein Traumhaus ist kein Haus” befasst sich mit zwei der ersten öffentlich geförderten, sozialen Wohnbauprojekte „Gerlitzgründe“ und „Eschensiedlung“ des Architekten Eilfried Huth aus den 1970er Jahren in der Steiermark.
The working method he developed envisaged a form of collaboration in which architects and future residents could meet at eye level. The result of these processes were individual houses designed by the residents themselves in the context of the settlement, where no two houses were alike. In an effort to provide access to housing for everyone, Huth envisioned the first construction phase (30 units) of the Gerlitzgründe in Graz for low-income young families under the age of 30.
Die Projekte waren einzigartig, weil es damals keine Möglichkeit eines partizipativen Ansatzes außerhalb des privat finanzierten Marktes gab.

Julia Gaisbacher grew up in the Brutalist terraced housing estate in Graz in the 1980s, where she was influenced by the ideas of communal living of the late 1960s in general and by the architects of Werkgruppe Graz in particular. This background contributed to her interest in housing and issues of private and public space. Gaisbacher approaches the communal housing projects through photography, text, archival images, and a documentary film, addressing the residents' relationships to the projects over the past 45 years. The work is a contemporary document of the potentially positive effects of architecture on social structures.

A book of photographs will be published in 2022 by the velvet cell. It was designed by Alejandro Cartagena and Fernando Gallegos.
https://www.thevelvetcell.com/shop/my-dreamhouse-is-not-a-house/

Link Documentary (49min, German with English UT): https://vimeo.com/402907143/47a8e8295a

Julia Gaisbacher, born 1983 in Grambach near Graz (AT), lives as a freelance artist and photographer in Vienna and Graz. She studied art history at the Karl-Franzens-University Graz, sculpture/ three-dimensional design at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (DE) and at the Hogeschool Sint-Lukas / LUCA School of Arts, Brussels (BE).
Julia Gaisbacher has received the Theodor Körner Fund Award (2021), the State Scholarship Photography of the Federal Chancellery of Austria (2020), the Purchase Award within the framework of the Promotion Award of the Province of Styria for Contemporary Visual Art (2019), the Erste Bank MehrWERT Art Recognition Award (2018), and the Photography Promotion Award of the City of Graz (2016).
2021 hat sie im Verlag der Camera Austria ihr Buch “One Day You Will Miss Me” herausgebracht.