Office figures by Bärbel Praun

"welcome to the studio

a space of 15 m²
with two windows
and a yellowish-brown linoleum floor

let‘s celebrate" B.P

The series “office figures came into life as soon as Bärbel had moved into her new studio some months ago. The building probably from the 60ies is in an industrial area of Hamburg and used to be a custom office.

"It soon will be torn down by the municipality to build a whole new living and shopping area. The room itself is small, squared and has a kind of plat-form at the two windows where I imagine the clerk sat at their desk. The floor is a yellowish-brown linoleum and apart from that the room was empty when I moved in.

In this dusty and frumpy atmosphere I noticed little traces in the room, leftovers, stories from who had might worked there. Scratches along the wall, probably from an office chair scrubbing. Holes from nails, at some places still screws in the wall (of a wall lamp, a cabinet, a shelf maybe). Crumbling plaster at the ceiling. This was the starting point of the series ‚office figures‘, using these traces as given components to add new ones and create new stories on their own. I quickly started to fill the space with geometric shapes, stellar constellations, softened corners. All materials used for these little in-terventions in the room I find and collect on my walks in urban or natural spaces." B.P