On his work

Bernhard Mayr, born in 1976 in Kufstein/Austria, holds a University degree in English and Media Studies from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Already as a teenager, he realized that there was nothing more fulfilling and exciting than to access the surrounding world using his camera. A scholarship at the Maquarie University, Sydney, allowed him to study and photograph abroad. He did so, but not in this order. In Sydney, he turned to photography in earnest and under the influence of a course he took concentrating on postmodern literature, he started to translate the alienated postmodern stance towards the world into the terms of the photographic medium. As a result, he accumulated a great number of photographs - each one capturing a bizarre and ephemeral juxtaposition of people and their surroundings. In putting together these fragments into a coherent whole in the shape of the book, using all the properties a book has at its disposal, he realized that it was two things that, until this day, hold an ongoing allure for him: the taking of photographs and the making of a photobook. Bernhard Mayr sees his work as a photographer in the tradition of an author who collects bits and pieces of information, selects the ones he thinks serve his story best and brings them in order to convey his narration in the most compelling way. Knowing that the choice of a convincing mode of expression is crucial, he uses analogue cameras and films, processing them in his darkroom - a practice he trusts most when it comes to creating a coherent body of photographic work.

After his first book "fliehend - fleeting", published in 2006, he went on to publish "Manincor" (2008), "Strandgut" (2008) and "... sag mir, wann du wiederkommst." (2012). Bernhard Mayr is currently working on his book on Sarajevo - "Erinnerungen an Sarajevo - Remember those Days...", - which is going to be published by Kehrer, Heidelberg, in the fall of 2016.

The work of Bernhard Mayr has been on show at the following single and group exhibitions: Academy of Arts, Berlin, the Art Gallery of the RLB in Innsbruck, the FotoForum in Bolzano; permanent installation of his photographs at the Mitterstall in Brandberg, a project of the Austrian Council for the Preservation of Historical Monuments. Book Awards: nomination for the "German PhotoBook Prize" and the category "Most Beautiful Books of Austria". "fliehend - fleeting" has been elected to the category of "Best International Photobooks" at the Photo Espana, Madrid. As a teacher at the "School for artistic photography, Vienna, Friedl Kubelka" and various other institutions he has already had the opportunity to share his knowledge with students of photography.