New book

Poetic travelogues by Styrian artists

The photo of the bear in the forest was taken in Slovenia(Bild: Richard Mayr)

One draws with a camera, the other with words: the Styrian artist duo Martin Krusche and Richard Mayr have been traveling together. The result is a collection of poetic travelogues that has now been published as a book.

Author Martin Krusche and photographer Richard Mayr have enjoyed a long artistic friendship. "We have done many projects together, especially in the Archipel Gleisdorf association," says Krusche. For example, they have dedicated a book to the region's small and rural monuments or explored the River Raab in words and pictures from its source to its end in Hungary.

One draws with a camera, the other with words
For the book "An solchen Tagen", which has just been published by Edition Keiper in Graz, they have intensified their artistic collaboration once again. Both like to travel a lot, both like to record their journeys - one with his camera and the other with his words. The idea for the book was born on a joint tour: "It was interesting to see how differently he reads and decodes the landscapes than I do and what he discovers in passing," says author Krusche about photographer Mayr.

While Mayr reacts to nature directly and on location with his camera, Krusche needs time: "The sensual experience of nature has a physical effect on me, but above all there is a reflex to abstraction," he says.

Poetic travelogue
This different way of looking at nature inspired the duo. And so photos and texts - from joint but also solitary trips into nature - were paired, resulting in a collection of poetic travelogues in words and images, from the Pack to the Lofoten Islands and from Ausseerland to the Amazon.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Edition Keiper/Richard Mayr)

But the duo's work doesn't end there: "We wanted to continue our dialog, so we extended the project to the Internet," says Krusche. QR codes in the book provide access to this virtual extension of the book: "There you can see the pictures that are shown in black and white in the book in color, for example," explains Krusche.