A box of untreated steel, defined by clean lines, sturdy yet understated. Wind, weather and time gradually leave their mark on its surface, allowing the installation to blend ever more naturally into its Alpine surroundings.
Self-taught photographer and former national-level skateboarder Oliver Kofler discovered the stillness of photography after an injury in 2015 – and with it, a new way of seeing. Working between Bolzano and San Francisco, he has since devoted himself to the deliberate slowness of analogue photography, a practice shaped by patience and precision. “Camera Obscura” embodies this philosophy. Standing before the rotating steel structure on Kronplatz, visitors look onto a pane of frosted glass where the world appears upside down: inverted, slowed, transformed. The oldest principle in optics becomes an immediate, tangible experience. The installation creates a dialogue between the Via Artis and the neighbouring LUMEN Museum of Mountain Photography through a shared reflection: what does it really mean to look? Sometimes, after all, it takes no more than slowing the gaze and releasing it, for a single moment, from its familiar paths to glimpse an entirely new perspective.