In her book Atlas of AI, researcher and artist Kate Crawford recounts a journey to the Nevada desert. She stands in the scorching heat amid the ruins of an old stone house, once part of the thriving gold mine town Blair. Crawford gazes through a gap in the ruins, looking out over the barren wasteland and reflecting on the violent traces humanity leaves – due to its insatiable greed for resources – on landscapes. In 1906, it was gold. In the 21st century, it is lithium, which is being sourced on a large scale in Silver Peak, just three miles from Crawford’s location. But once the resources are depleted, humanity moves on, searching for the next reservoir, leaving behind exhausted and debris-littered landscapes.

In a poetic and distinctive manner, artist Natalia Stachon explores the atmospheres of such places in her drawings and installations. The entire arrangement of works responds to the unique architecture of the Reinbeckhallen, where numerous silent remnants of a bygone – yet consequential industrial – era still resonates.

Stachon’s work has been featured in the following solo and group exhibitions: the 4th Industrial Art Biennial in Labin, Croatia (2023); Kunstverein Springhornhof (2020/21); ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2019); Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin (2016/17); Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl (2016); CSW Center of Contemporary Art, Toruń/PL (2016); BWA Contemporary Art Museum, Katowice/PL (2015); n.b.k Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2015); Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt (2014); Daimler Contemporary, Berlin (2020/2013/2010); Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2013); Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2012); Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2011/2010); and Tate Modern, London (2010).

Since September 2021, Stachon has been a professor of sculpture and drawing in the Department of Design at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.

Through the space where a window used to be is a collaboration between the Stiftung Reinbeckhallen and LOOCK Gallery.