Strange Realities (2024) disrupts our perception of authenticity and what makes a given space unique and a moment memorable. They show the relationship of the observer to place and time, and at the same time pretend the warped reality of our observation, expectation and experience to reality.

If we were asked if we preferred something—anything—“real” or “fake,” most of us would choose the former with little hesitation. We all love the prospect of meeting authentic people, places and things. But what it means to be authentic is ambiguous. Scientists have been trying to find the answer for years. Over the course of the 20th century, debates have evolved from an understanding of authenticity as a fixed material quality, an originality that objects either have or not, to a context-dependent quality that essentially relies on the eye of the beholder.

Thinking about authenticity as a relationship between people, meanings and places helps reveal its spatial implications. Authenticity may be vague and unattainable, but it drives our individual and collective behavior in significant ways, and is therefore seen as a motivation to seek out any experience. At the same time, however, it is true that the authentic is always socially constructed.

Project was produced during the one month residency in Tuscany (Italy) in april 2024, provided by Eva Kahán Foundation.