Erli Grünzweil – WHERE DEER FLY AND STONES CRY – Photo Book Release & Artist Talk

24 June 2026, 18:00
Softcover, Stumpergasse 53-55, 1060 Vienna

Please sign up in advance as places are limited:

Talk language: German
Admission: Free

An introductory conversation between Erli Grünzweil and Ines Frieda Försterling, followed by a reading from the book by Ines Frieda Försterling.

WHERE DEER FLY AND STONES CRY by Erli Grünzweil is a book about memory, belonging, and the critical examination of social norms.

The project takes as its starting point a local legend that gave Erli Grünzweil’s hometown the name “Paradise”. According to the story, a stone changed its shape overnight after the Holy Family had rested upon it. This quiet transformation, suggesting that even the hardest materials can be reshaped, becomes the point of departure for an artistic exploration of rigid binary, religious, and patriarchal structures.

Bringing together photographs, drawings by the artist’s grandfather, and a text developed in collaboration with artist and writer Ines Frieda Försterling, the project creates a magical-realist world in which nothing appears fixed or unequivocal. Oscillating between staging and documentation, the photographs are characterised by carefully balanced compositions and precise lighting. Deer leap and move through the images, gazing directly into the camera, until viewers gradually realise that they are enclosed behind fences. Human presence remains largely implied, reflected in the deer and other animals, stones, plants, fruits, water, smoke, and objects. Past and present overlap through the juxtaposition of recent photographs and archival images drawn from Erli Grünzweil’s photographic archive of the last twenty years.

Beneath its seemingly paradisiacal surface, the work reveals social tensions shaped by normative expectations. From a non-binary perspective, the project questions the values and truths that have been passed down through generations. Moving between childhood and adulthood, protection and threat, stasis and transformation, this autofictional work employs metaphorical imagery to critically examine the collective impact of normative structures through the lens of personal experience. Through reinterpretation, condensation, and the shifting of meanings, it opens up space for alternative conceptions of gender, belonging, and liberation.

154 pages, 23x30cm, softcover
84 images (61 color, 23 b/w)
Edition of 500
Witty Books, 2026
ISBN 979-12-80177-67-4
Art direction and Edit: Tommaso Parrillo
Graphic Design: Ilaria Miotto
Text: Ines Frieda Försterling, Erli Grünzweil
Print: L’Artistica Savigliano, Italy

Erli Grünzweil (they/them), *1992, is based in Vienna, Austria. Grünzweil studied Applied Photography and Time-Based Media at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and was awarded the START Scholarship for Photography in 2024 and the Photo Art Award WHAT A VIEW! By OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH in 2026.

Website Erli Grünzweil
Instagram Erli Grünzweil