Christoph Grill
Christoph Grill was born in 1965 in Austria. He studied biology/zoology at the University of Vienna, where he focused on archaeozoology – the field that studies animal remains in an archaeological context. Today he lives and works as a photographer and archaeozoologist in Graz.
Since 1996, he has been travelling regularly to the former socialist countries, mainly the republics of the former Soviet Union. His artwork focuses on exploring these regions, documenting the transformations and consequences of political change. Between 1999 and 2010, he visited all 15 former Soviet republics, his aim being to document the post-perestroika period and the transformations in these countries. In exploring the peripheral regions of these countries, he sought out scenes that reflected past grandeur and the abandoned dreams of recent history. The photographs depict closed factories, abandoned military complexes and forgotten monuments, often devoid of human presence, which emphasises the sense of loneliness and abandonment. Yet Grill does not fall into stereotypes of Soviet austerity; instead, his works reveal human resilience and adaptability. For example, a shepherd in Armenia uses an abandoned bus as a pergola, and a hunter has made a home in the guardhouse of a former women’s penal camp on the Russian island of Sakhalin.
The result of a multi-year project is the photography book Short Stalks at Distant Shores, published in 2012 by Hatje Cantz, which contains 106 photographs that offer an unvarnished look at everyday life in these regions. Grill has participated in numerous group exhibitions across Europe and has had solo exhibitions in countries such as the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Slovenia and Russia. His works are included in collections in Austria and France.
