In his interdisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, video, photography, and performative installations, Sascha Pohle reveals how materials and environments hold traces of cultural histories and collective experiences. His projects often take the form of collections or assemblages reminiscent of archaeological or anthropological exhibitions. Using found objects and everyday items, he reinterprets them in new contexts, transfers them to other media, or brings them to life in his films. Inspired by film and art history, Pohle reimagines familiar images and narrative structures to playfully intervene in the way we classify, interpret, and interact with the world around us. He often collaborates with local people on handcrafted objects, frequently employing a site-responsive approach.
SKINS
SKINS are fabric prints and weavings of abstract patterns derived from forensic SEM images of skin remains on Korean K-Pop group TVXQ’s stage costumes, inspired by the refrain “Under my Skin” from their 2008 song “Mirotic.”
2024, digital prints, polyester, various sizes, woven fabric, cotton, 200 x 150 cm
The Song of Polysiren
An installation of black glass objects—shaped from Jeju styrofoam waste with coastal rock textures—displayed on light boxes remodeled from buoys. Looking inside the glass reveals jewelry-like or sea creature forms, transforming oceanic debris into luminous artifacts.
2024, colored glass, styrofoam light box, variable dimensions, 4K video, 7 min, b&w, sound, German with English subtitles
I Packed My Bag
East German mesh shopping bags molded into ceramics and placed on styrofoam buoys form fossil-like sculptures exploring memory, consumption, and material afterlives of everyday objects.
2023 - 2025, ceramic, knit bag, styrofoam, plaster, gesso, various sizes
Liquid Grounds
Glass objects, formed from an old wooden floor from Amsterdam-North, preserve fossil-like traces of dwelling and offer a micro-perspective on shifting grounds with fluid substrates.
2023, glass, dimensions variable, styrofoam light box
Passage
Mobile photos of urban asphalt from cities where I've lived and worked, machine-knitted into fabrics. Exhibited as folded 'walks' performed by flâneurs or draped on tables/floors, this fluid index oscillates between fashion cloth, archive, and map.
2019 (ongoing), machine knitted fabrics, mixed material
Regardless of Nationality
A series of AI-generated images from prompts of the Diver of Paestum and a migrant artist rights report. Silver leaf overlays evoke ceramic repair traditions, suggesting mending cracks in narrowing notions of nationality and belonging.
2023, laser print, silver leaf, silver leaf, 32 x 40 cm, clip frame
Notes For Migrating Plant, Objects And Humans
An extension of After the Gift, this piece charts baskets’ full genealogy in a book with graphic notations—detailing size, plant/artist names, sources, etc., and countries of origin/residence. This genealogy of baskets can be played as sound on a "labephone", adapting the form of extensive museum labels.
2019, metal bars, letter decals, vibraphone mallets, various materials, artist book, b&w, 31,5 cm x 23,5 cm
After The Gift
Bamboo objects woven after Blossfeldt’s plant photography (Urformen der Kunst, 1928; Wundergarten der Natur, 1932) are displayed in a classical museum style. Hybrid baskets translate microscopic plant forms into Chinese weaving techniques. The vessels invite speculation on cultural and technical transfers across borders.
2016 - 2019, baskets (#11, woven bamboo, dimensions variable), artist book, 2 videos, performance
Ornaments of Property
Sculptural fragments from collected DVD/CD drives as "bricks." Discarded devices become fossil-like artifacts in modern ruins—panning imaginary architectures blending ancient ornamentation. The modular sculpture can be rebuilt from provided examples, combined into site-responsive installation groups, or newly configured.
2015/2018, CD/DVD computer drives, various dimensions
Crippled Symmetry
Emptied 16 mm film archive boxes from the Goethe Institute Amsterdam attic form ornamental arrangements. Inverse spaces of absent reels index cultural memory—misaligned ("crippled") with floor patterns, tiles, wallpaper, stucco, and windows of the 19th-century building. Framed as migrated motifs, they blur national heritage into complex decorative histories.
2013, 81 35 mm slides, color
Studio Index
Every artist who worked at the Rijksakademie since 1993, mapped by name, year, and studio on the building's floor plan. This archival grid reveals institutional architecture while inviting speculation on ambitions, selection processes, and collective oblivion. Acquired by the Rijksakademie for continuous updates.
2012-ongoing, print on paper, mounted photograph, b&w