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Sacred Tears, 2026
Video installation
(aluminium dibond, digital print, LED panels, webcam, water)
300 x 150 x 60 cm each eye

May 15 – June 21, 2026 at Badeschiff Wien
The Center of Wiener Festwochen 2026
Vienna, Austria
https://www.festwochen.at/en/sacred-tears-installation

Angewandte Festival
July 1 - July 4, 2026
Vienna, Austria

Holy Tears is a two-part video installation that connects ancient Egyptian mythologies with urban space. The two eyes refer to the Eye of Ra (right eye) and the Eye of Horus (left eye)—two central symbols of Egyptian mythology that have stood for complementary forces for millennia: sun and moon, day and night, power and healing, order and change.

Starting from these archetypal images, the installation examines how myths continue to persist in the present and what role they play in the daily life of modern societies. It shifts the boundaries between deity, myth, and human, transferring a millennia-old system of symbols into a democratic and collective context. The design of the digital prints on Alu-Dibond is inspired by the visual language and aesthetics of ancient Egyptian depictions. The pupils of the mythological eyes are replaced by video recordings of real people. The eyes of Viennese citizens form the central element of the installation. A public call allowed interested individuals to have their eyes filmed, thereby becoming part of the artwork.

This creates a collective body in which individual identities merge with mythological figures. The divine eyes are no longer interpreted as symbols of a distant power, but rather as the mirror of a community. The work connects past and present, sacred narrative and public space, raising the question of who owns images, myths, and forms of transcendence today. Holy Tears views mythology not as a closed historical heritage, but as a living process that is continuously reshaped and perpetuated by the people of the present. The artwork stimulates reflection on fundamental dualisms of the contemporary world, ranging from politics and gender to geography.

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