Cian Handschuh

Cian Handschuh is GlogauAIR resident from January 2026 to March 2026. Q1

Handschuh’s practice engages sculptural installation and site-specific intervention to explore questions of dwelling, ownership, land dysphoria, wildness, and heritage. His work examines links between body and land using dwelling as a mutual space and as such an analysis point for their interaction. This draws from the built environment and its function as an ‘extended body’ and thus contrasting and combining formal modern building materials with those of the natural world.

Meet the Artist

Can you tell me more about your background and what you’re working on for your residency?

You often talk about “dwelling” as a space where body and land meet. What does dwelling mean to you, and how do you hope people feel when they step into your work?

You work a lot with gleaned and recovered materials in your previous works. How do these materials shape the direction of a piece once you start working with them?

During your time at GlogauAIR, you’re continuing your investigation into ownership and land possession. What question feels the most urgent to you at the moment?

Interview Reese Saddler (@reeseesaddler)

Photos Ksenia Proskuryakova (@ksenyapro)

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Statement

Handschuh’s practice engages sculptural installation and site-specific intervention to explore questions of dwelling, ownership, land dysphoria, wildness, and heritage. His work examines links between body and land using dwelling as a mutual space and as such an analysis point for their interaction. This draws from the built environment and its function as an ‘extended body’ and thus contrasting and combining formal modern building materials with those of the natural world. The work seeks to shorten the proximity between us and dwelling and provide a sense of nearness with material and land.

GlogauAIR Project

Building on my recent work isn’t all land holy, every structure a temple(2025), I intend to use the time afforded by the GlogauAIR residency to further develop my ongoing investigation into ownership, land possession, and the value assigned to “prefabricated” objects.

My practice approaches objects through an animistic lens, proposing a porous relationship between people and things—one in which boundaries dissolve through an almost osmotic exchange. This perspective resists human hierarchies over objects, instead suggesting a shared agency. Central to this approach is my use of gleaned, foraged, and recovered materials: remnants that are borrowed rather than owned, and which arrive already charged with their own histories.