Anna Ehrenstein is a German-Albanian artist whose work reflects on cultural migration and material culture in the digital age. Her multi-disciplinary practice includes photographic installations and writing, through which she examines the cross pollinations of ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures; their socio-economic and political entanglements.
The research-based work, ‘Tools for Conviviality,’ a collaboration with Awa Seck, Thibaut Houssou, Nyamwathi Gichau, Lydia Likibi and Saliou Ba, won the 2020 C/O Berlin Talent Award. Its title pays homage to the book ‘Tools for Conviviality’ (1973) by the Croatian-Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich (1926-2002), a critic of the uses of technology in relation to education and social infrastructure. Ehrenstein’s work considers Illich’s ideas in relation to our relationship to social media and its technologies today.
Anna Ehrenstein is one of the guests in conversation with artist Adam Broomberg in the talk series organised for the master's Artistic Research & Photography & Society.