This sculpture is part of „Skulpturenwege Langenberg“ ( https://www.skulpturenwege-langenberg.de/hanne-koester/ ) and my first permanently installed public sculpture.

tactan (from tactilis, lat.: tangible, and tangere, lat.: to touch) thematically oscillates between material experience and an engagement with the unclear boundary between nature and culture, between object and agent. Various tree fungi—some collected from the immediate surroundings—form the formal point of departure for the work. Their role within the forest ecosystem is reflected upon through action. While fungi decompose wood in order to contribute to the formation of new soil, tactan reveals traces of a comparable back-and-forth. What becomes visible is an in-between. From the outside, fingerprints and traces of touch attempt to approach and experience the object; from within, the imprint of the fungi that have been felt and touched remains visible. Their surface, their exterior, appears as if turned inside out, discernible within the interior of the sculpture. Ultimately, who touches whom—who is touchable, fungus or hand—may dissolve into this in-between.