Micheldorf Micheldorf Micheldorf Micheldorf

Elias Holzknecht
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Micheldorf Micheldorf Micheldorf Micheldorf

I wanted to explore the country I grew up in. A chance journey brought me to Micheldorf in Upper Austria, where I began photographing village life. I was drawn to the beauty of the everyday in a community of nearly 6,000 people, for whom Micheldorf was the centre of their lives.

As I became more familiar with the place, I became increasingly aware of the limits of trying to describe a social space through a single photographic narrative. There were different stories, perspectives and ways of approaching the same place. Even its name pointed to multiplicity: three other places in Austria are called Micheldorf. The project gradually expanded beyond one location.

For the book, I was interested in how I was constructing a sense of place and identity through the selection and sequencing of photographs and text fragments.

I developed three versions of the book. Each contains exactly the same material, arranged in an entirely different sequence. Working through these sequences was a way of exploring several possible narratives without adding or removing anything.
The versions are distributed at random and marked 1/4, 2/4 and 3/4. A fourth version was never made.


EXHIBITIONS
2025 – Sensen Museum Micheldorf, solo, Micheldorf in OÖ, AUT
2024 – Les Rencontres de la Photographie, group show, Arles, FR
2023 – Goethe Exil, group show, Hannover, DE
2021 – Graduation Show, BA Photography, KASK, Ghent, BE

AWARDS
2025 – Nomination, PHotoESPAÑA Best Photography Book of the Year
2024 – Nomination, German Photobook Award
2023 – Nomination, C/O Berlin Talent Award

Text
2025 – tagebuch.at
2025 – faz.net