Between Fire and Ice: A Geopoetic Dialogue
Raphael Reichl
I live and work in Vienna and Mexico City. Whenever I deal with people's existential conflicts and their real life situations, I strive to question the official narratives and their perception. I pursues a similarly reflexive approach in his work with creative media, be it analogue film, a sheet of paper or the realisation of a video installation. On the basis of documentary approaches, I deal with topics of digitalisation, ecology and work.
I studied at the Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film. I graduated in 2022 in Site-specific Art (Prof. Paul Petritsch / Six & Petritsch) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
We live in a time of ecological crisis and narrative exhaustion. Dominant frameworks treat nature as a resource and territory as extractable, foreclosing other ways of being. This project seeks to recover and cultivate new languages of care and listening—languages emerging from the land itself, through sound, myth, and embodied research.
We propose a speculative dialogue between Popocatépetl, the living volcano of central Mexico, and Untersberg, the Austrian mountain steeped in myths of time anomalies and mirror worlds. Through poetic territorial research, we imagine these mountains as living archives—transhemispheric sentinels capable of exchanging memory, warning, and vision. By linking a volcano in the Global South and an Alpine massif in the Global North, the project unfolds as a dialogue between fire and ice, eruption and suspension, presence and latency. These geographies become thresholds of a living laboratory where spatial storytelling becomes a method of care and world-making in times of ecological and cultural transition.
Methodology
Inspired by Ursula Biemann’s systemic storytelling, our process blends field research, geophone sound recordings, speculative narratives, and archival material. Central to our approach are collaborative workshops and story-labs across North and South, activating exchanges between indigenous, local, and scientific knowledge. Through LINA’s network, these labs will foster dialogue with member institutions, exploring narrative as spatial practice.
Output
Video Essay (12–15 min) combining poetic voice-over, soundscapes, field imagery, and speculative cartography.
Impact
The project expands architectural discourse beyond buildings—engaging territory, myth, and ecological justice as spatial practice. It fosters intercontinental narratives and participatory methods for imagining speculative futures. Future formats may include installations, publications, and public events with LINA Members and partners.