Driving or stepping into an underpass usually is an act of submergence. Once inside, the thing is diving through as swiftly as possible so as to emerge quickly to the open air again. Underpasses generally do not invite reflection on (one’s) passing through them.

Things may be different in the case of the underground passageway from Vienna’s Danube Canal to Löwengasse (underneath the feeder road to the airport highway) that was designed by Julie Hayward. First, a friendly sign above the canal-side entrance indicates that after entering the funnel-shaped narrowing passageway we will be on the rise again soon: “emerge” it says in white handwritten letters. And we do, coming up from the river level and surfacing to the slightly higher bottom of the sea of buildings. And all along the way it never gets dim and darkish like in so many other underground passageways, but there are two strips of lights that guide us, not only by shining themselves, but by making the bright blue paint of the walls and ceiling shine as well.

In the opposite direction, it is diving down to the river. This time, the encouragement is not in writing but pictorial: at the entrance, or downward ramp, on the city side, passers-through are afforded a view of an “aquarium”: on a closer look, it may be identified as a large light box picture, although it is impossible to tell exactly what can be seen here – some creature, swimming off to the right or just emerging, presumably not human, but if it is an animal, what kind is it? The walkway then leads into that bluish strip-lit space that those coming up the other way first step into – for those walking toward the Canal, the bluish light appears similar in tone to the watery color of the aquarium picture. From this point onward, they are given a piece of real nature as an eye-catcher and a beacon: at the end of the tunnel stands a brightly lit tree – in broad daylight or artificial light, depending on the hour of the day. Like in her work of sculpture, drawing, and photography, Julie Hayward’s approach in abtauchen / auftauchen (submerge / emerge) is “equilibrating,” that is, balancing (and thereby addressing) tensions of a physical and psychological nature. She uses “found objects from real life” as well as images emerging from the subconscious to create “states of suspense, a line-up of conflicting shapes for which the human eye associates a context” (Eva Mayer). An approach that seems well suited to also neutralize fears and aggressions in the public realm.

Text: Lucas Gehrmann