After [the small rural community of] Neumarkt and [the old mining town of] Eisenerz, Erwin Polanc has now trained his photographic lens on Mariazell. In doing so he has focused on yet another remote inner-Austrian town, which is itself retrospective in its orientation and therefore underscores the nature of photography as an image of remembrance; but unlike the two aforementioned localities, Mariazell is also bound to the presence of the holy. The town of Mariazell is a perfect illustration of how the circles out of which the centre defines itself can be concealed. Of how loftily the centre towers above all else, and its axiality is broken as it descends into the profane. Erwin Polanc has captured that stumble and the reactions of the profane.

Erwin Polanc, *1982 in Neumarkt, Austria. Lives and works in Graz, Austria.