After the staged group performance at FH Joanneum, I wanted to try something else:
What happens when you don’t stage anything? When you let the celery fend for itself, with no curated audience, no fake note-takers, and no performative hype?
Originally, my next plan was to place it at Graz Hauptplatz—a public, central, neutral space not wrapped in art-school context. But vecause of the recent tragic events, it didn’t feel appropriate. The Hauptplatz is covered in candles, photos, and flowers. I didn’t want to insert something playful into that space.
Art needs awareness of timing, not just space. So when the weekend took me to Vienna, I had new ground to explore.
MuseumsQuartier, Vienna
Despite the name, the MuseumsQuartier isn’t a museum. It’s more of a cultural hangout zone: cafés, restaurants, and chill-out steps. There’s art in the area, yes but it’s not a gallery space. It’s normal/neutral ground. People are here to eat, talk, flirt, scroll, argue, read. Not necessarily to interpret what’s leaning against a wall. Which made it the perfect place. I chose a spot just next to a café, leaned the celery against a low ledge, and took a seat a few meters away. Funny thing was I was on a date and it was actually a great conversation starter (or red flag, depending on your perspective). Maybe my celery actions is a solid warning label for what to expect lol.
Over the course of about an hour, nothing happened. People passed. People sipped coffee. Dogs trotted by. A few kids played on scooters. It wasn’t touched it wasn’t thrown away. It was just invisible. And that, in itself, said something.
This experiment reminded me a lot of the first attempt at the Hornig Gelände Graz. That time, the celery was also unannounced and unguarded but it was removed by staff who saw it as misplaced waste. Here in Vienna, it wasn’t removed. It wasn’t even acknowledged.
No one “cleaned it up,” because no one saw it as something out of place. Or it just didn’t matter enough to trigger a response. In Graz, the space was highly structured everything there was supposed to have meaning. So something like celery broke the code. In the MuseumsQuartier, everything is casual and chaotic. A bit of randomness blends in.
In other words:
In Graz, the celery stood out just enough to be erased.
In Vienna, it blended in so well it disappeared without needing to go anywhere.
Rampenlicht oder kein Rampenlicht
This made me think about how visibility isn’t just about contrast, it’s about context. Sometimes, trying to stand out in a chaotic environment only makes you blend in more. Maybe the celery was too quiet for the MuseumsQuartier. Even without a reaction, I still count this as a successful attempt. Sometimes, indifference is louder than critique. This celery had its moment. It stood in a city that didn’t care.
And maybe that’s not failure. Maybe that’s freedom.
