SCULPTURAL OBJECTS

The Trojan Deer began in Stellichte, a small village surrounded by forest, history and inherited rituals of watching. The landscape seemed quiet at first, but it carried an older structure. Estate, hunting ground, forest paths, raised viewpoints, and the long habit of observing from above.

I was first thinking about guard boxes, the small architectural shells used for ritualised watching. But the forest already had its own version, the Hochsitz, the hunter’s elevated box. It is a rural watchtower, a structure of permission and advantage. From there, the hunter sees first.

The work began with a simple inversion - what if the deer stepped inside?

That small shift changes the whole logic of the object. The Hochsitz is no longer only a place from which to watch. It becomes a place that watches back. The viewer approaches expecting a hunting structure, but finds the gaze reversed. The deer is no longer simply the object of pursuit, it has entered the architecture of control.

The structure follows three languages at once, the Hochsitz, the guard box and the theatre. It stands on wheels, so the hierarchy is no longer fixed. It can move. At the front, the deer skull pushes outward like a mask, turning the whole object into a lookout through which the forest seems to return the gaze.

Placed near the hunter’s room, with its rituals of slaughter, skinning and storage, the work becomes more than a joke. It is not simply against hunting, and it is not a sentimental monument to the deer. It asks a more uncomfortable question. Who has the right to watch? Who sees first? What does tradition look like from the other side of the gaze? And who eats what.

The Trojan Deer is a familiar structure carrying an unfamiliar consciousness. A Hochsitz behaving like a guard box, a guard box behaving like a stage, and a deer looking back at the human rituals built around it.