Huda Takriti, Anatomy of an Endless Scene, 2025, Video, 11’30”, 4k, Farbe, Schwarz-weiß, Sound, Installationsansicht MQ Freiraum, Wien
The Cathedral Museum Salzburg, in cooperation with the Kardinal König Art Fund of the Archdiocese of Salzburg, presents an artistic intervention by Huda Takriti, recipient of the Kardinal König Art Award 2026.
In her video work Anatomy of an Endless Scene (2025), Huda Takriti (born 1990 in Damascus, Syria) explores the themes of memory, archives, and historiography. Archives and ruins emerge as sites of knowledge and collective memory. The artist understands ruins as open spaces that preserve traces of past events while connecting the present with the past.
The work takes as its point of departure a prologue from Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V (1989), which highlights the construction of narratives and the role of the audience. Through a poetic dialogue between a floating eye and a spotlight, the artist reflects on perception, memory, and the possibility of retelling history.
At the heart of the video is found-footage material drawn from Takriti’s personal image archive. Historical documents, news footage, and film scenes intertwine to form multilayered narratives and open up new associative spaces. In doing so, the artist questions the credibility of images and their claim to truth. Through distortions, light flares, and image inversions, viewers’ perception is deliberately unsettled, directing attention to the construction of history itself. The result is a nuanced reflection on how memory is formed, how images shape history, and what role we play in interpreting them.
The Kardinal König Art Fund is among the most prestigious awards in the Austrian art landscape. It underscores the Church’s commitment to contemporary art and to dialogue with current social developments. Established in 2005 at the initiative of Prelate Dr. Johannes Neuhardt, the prize is awarded to internationally active artists whose principal place of residence is in Austria and whose work opens up new artistic, social, and cultural perspectives.
The presentation at the Cathedral Museum Salzburg is made possible through the support of
