Method

Classic Archeology

     Classic Archeology researches and studies the material legacy of mankind from elapsed centuries and milleniums using the methods of natural science and humanities. It is a science deeply orientated into the past.

     Contemporary archeology, which means the examination and evaluation of the material legacy of mankind only a few years or a few decades old, is disputed controversialy. And that seems justyfied: What story does a rusty cork-screw tell, which is only a few years old and industrialy produced in masses?

Neo-Archeology

      My memory research, on the other hand, moves between the fields of archaeology and object art. Using the method of neo-archaeology that I have developed, I explore the material traces of past everyday worlds in so-called ‘lost places’, such as residential buildings, sheds, farms, workshops or inns that were abandoned a few years ago – places that are not considered historical monuments, but have fallen into disrepair or been forgotten as silent witnesses to extinct individual realities of life. 
     I am interested in the mundane remains of the ordinary: crockery, tools, fragments of furniture, items of clothing, photographs or documents – things that have been torn from their original context and fallen out of the cycle of use. For these objects not only reveal the past of their former owners, but also refer to social processes of remembering and forgetting.
     My work as a neo-archaeologist takes place in two phases. First, using an archaeologically and scientifically inspired approach, I define an area of investigation, systematically comb through the site and photographically document the finds. I then recover the objects, carefully clean them and rearrange them in an artistic process, either as material images or as large-scale installations. 
     In these assemblages, I reinterpret the original narrative of the objects from an aesthetic perspective: fragments, cracks, signs of weathering and material ageing are not concealed, but deliberately integrated into the artistic design. I am interested in the hidden history of their former owners, which is inscribed in the signs of use.
     In contrast to classical recycling art, however, my focus is not on the pure material value or the recombination of disparate elements, but on the contextuality of the found objects. This results in showpieces of extremely powerful, sometimes poetic, sometimes surreal intensity.
     Where it is not possible to fix the found objects in permanent arrangements, I simply photograph them and then return them to where I found them – a practice that is oriented towards land art and understands transience as an integral part of my own work.
     In an age of increasing careless throwaway culture and unbridled consumption, I want to set a counterpoint with my object art: it celebrates the aesthetics of decay and makes visible what often goes unnoticed. It gives discarded and forgotten things a new dignity – not through conservation, but through transformation into artistic spaces of remembrance and references to the “small” stories of humanity.

     Matthias Weigold
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)  

Location: Unterrettenbach Village / Lower Bavaria / Germany

The Situation:

     By reading a feature story in the newspaper SÜDDEUTSCHEN ZEITUNG reporting on the many abandoned farmhouses in Lower Bavaria my attention was drawn on this phenomenon. At one of the mentioned locations I undertook an exemplary examination and extensive documentation of the situation.

     I left all objects untouched and unchanged in their original arrangement.