START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists

The author’s duo is involved in the long terms with installations, which create life-size architectural illusions or intervention. For their joint thesis they got inspired by the phenomenon of urban transformation of the western suburb of Zurich, which is recently undergoing radical changes that deprive it of the historical authenticity. The authors decided to replace the past with a wooden simulacrum: under the highway bridge they built an exact replica of an elderly gas station, but the only material was wood. The resulting object stands on the border between a sculpture and architecture and represents an absurd and poetic monument of the disappearing past. (Pavel Vančát)

Michael Meier. Born in 1980 in Wiener Neustadt (AUT). Studies: 2008 - 2011 Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (MFA); 2003 - 2007 Kunstuniversität Linz (BFA). Christoph Franz. Born in 1982 in Singen (DEU). Lives in Zurich. Studies: 2009 - 2011 Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (MFA); 2003 - 2007 Kunstuniversität Linz (BFA). Between 2007 - 2009 both of them collaborated with "raumlaborberlin" Berlin.