Maria Thraen (they/them)

Maria Thrän (Eisenach 1984) lives and works in Berlin and Seattle. They are an interdisciplinary artist and documentary filmmaker who explores the intersection of art, research, and technology. Working with sound, including voice modulation, field recordings, and video, Maria creates immersive installations that delve into the intricate connections between sound, language, politics, and nature.

Their recent interest is in considering unused metadata as a new perspective for preservation and presentation in their practice. Driven by the current zeitgeist, political landscape, and their own personal history, particularly the peaceful protests in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), Maria finds themselves immersed in questions surrounding the performative act of protest and the embodiment of oral storytelling through dance and crafting in analog and digital (social) media. They inquire into the role and significance of these acts in preserving memory and archiving narratives for counternarratives. They ponder which stories get to be told, who tells them, and why, while exploring the possibilities of speculative stories inspired by thinkers like Saidiya Hartman. As a white person with their own background, Maria reflects on the perspectives they want to preserve and share, acknowledging the responsibilities that come with it and considers the role of technology in this endeavor.