Many of Oscar Tuazon’s projects are inspired by the alternative and utopian architecture of the 1960s and 1970s, do-it-yourself buildings and early eco-efficient and self-sufficient housing models. With the artist Cäcilia Brown, this year’s Msgr. Otto Mauer Award winner, we talk about sculptures as functional objects and community-building structures, nomadic and open forms of living and housing as a living, never-finished process. 

Cäcilia Brown’s sculptural work shows parallels to Oscar Tuazon’s sculptural practice. While Brown often uses set pieces from urban infrastructure such as roadblocks, bridge parts or rails, Tuazon’s architectural sculptures such as “Building” or his “Water School” project have their counterparts in built reality. The work of both artists is based on an action-oriented idea of sculpture, a sculpture that sets processes in motion, builds on interpersonal communication and, as a result, on the knowledge and history of others. Both works are socio-politically motivated in that they question hierarchies and power dynamics. 

Cäcilia Brown (*1983 in Sens, France). Lives and works in Vienna and Lower Austria. Numerous group and solo exhibitions in Austria and abroad, most recently: Cäcilia Brown, Msgr. Otto Mauer Prize, Jesuiten Foyer, Vienna 2024; Balancing Fossils and Fumes, Chin Chin Pottery, Taiwan 2024; L’art que j'aime, Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna 2023; Landstreicherinnen, E-Werk e.V., Freiburg 2022.