ENCOUNTERING ECHOES: ECHOING ENCOUNTER
Following Rolf Hughes’ notion of exposition (2015) as the act of creating a field of encounter, this inaugural issue reframes exposition as a space of echoing—a resonance between the seen and unseen, the said and unsaid. To encounter is to come up against what resists assimilation—an idea, a material, a history, a theory, or another being. To echo is to let that encounter reverberate and transform. Between encountering and echoing lies an ethics of care, speculation, and reciprocity—a willingness to stay with what is incomplete, uncertain, or even misread.
In line with the Arts of the contact zone (Pratt 1991), encounters are never neutral; they unfold in zones of tension, translation, and transformation. Similarly, Studio Note treats encounter and echo as creative and critical forces that shape our practices, pedagogies, and therefore our identities.
We invite contributions that explore encountering and echoing as speculative and performative acts of research.
Studio Note Journal Nº 1
Editors-in-Chief | Alphabetic Order:
Niloofar Amini
Gareth Jones
Jorge Valdovinos
Laura Yuile
Associate Editors | Alphabetic Order:
Eman AlHabashneh
Francesca Brunetti
Ruehl Muller
Mohammed Ali Sharieff
Raynal Somiah
Yvan Tina
Zihong Yue
Typeset in:
Editorial Team
Copy Editing:
Editorial Team
Proof Reading:
Editorial Team
Design:
Editorial Team
Published by:
University for the Creative Arts | ICI
Publication location:
Farnham, Surrey, UK
Xiamen, Fujian Province, China
Online publication date:
Summer 2026
ISSN: 2978-8080 (Print)
E-ISSN: 2978-8099 (Online)
studionote@uca.ac.uk
www.studionotejournal.org
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From Prague to Barcelona: Jeff Wall’s ODRADEK
Written at the Occasion of Jeff Wall’s Retrospective ‘POSSIBLE TALES’ - 24.05.2024 – 13.10.2024 Palau de la Virreina – Barcelona
Erich Weiss - erichweissxx@gmail.com
In 1994, Jeff Wall recounts a compelling journey to Prague; ‘I went to Prague to hunt for Odradek; I was fortunate to be able to get a shot of him in an old building there.’ The resulting photograph, Odradek, Taboritska 8, Prague, 18 July 1994, captures a young girl descending a staircase within a historic Prague building (Fig.1). Beneath the staircase, a small, enigmatic object emerges—Odradek. This sculpture, crafted by Wall himself, draws inspiration from Franz Kafka’s (1919) eponymous text. Odradek, as Kafka (1919) describes it, is a creature embodying contradictions; ‘A fat star-shaped spool for thread,’ tangled with colorful threads yet capable of standing upright on two legs thanks to a crossbar and a rod. It is both a doll and a fallen angel—a microcosm of disparity and ambiguity. Wall’s decision to construct a model of this mysterious entity reflects his fascination with objects that evoke confusion and layered symbolism. The photograph transcends mere documentation of an object placed in an old Prague building; it becomes a scene charged with presence and mystery.
The girl, seemingly unaware of the small figure’s presence beneath the staircase — but who lives in the same building- serves as an allegory of the overlooked and the uncanny. The image functions as a visual exploration of the surreal, connecting viewers to Kafka’s (1919) tale through the language of imagery. The small figure, both sculpture and symbol, becomes an earthly angel fallen into the mundane—a silent guardian of secrets hidden in the quotidian.
Fast forward to 1999; Wall revisits this motif by transporting the Odradek sculpture to Barcelona. This time, he links the mysterious object and Kafka’s (1919) narrative to an emblematic space—the rebuilt Pavilion designed by Mies van der Rohe, a hallmark of modern architecture. In this intervention, Wall conceals the Odradek sculpture behind the Pavilion's red curtain and hangs a colour print of the Prague photograph casually taped to the wall. Like the Czech girl, in Prague, most viewers remain unaware of the sculpture’s presence. Again, Wall plays with our notions of perception and neglect. The Prague picture is a hint, installed to invite the viewer to a closer look. However, Wall’s most significant intervention during this project is the creation of an entirely new photograph. During his stay in Barcelona, Wall observed a routine performed every morning—around 5 or 6 a.m.—by one of the guardians, meticulously cleaning the Pavilion’s glass walls. The man’s movements, almost automatic, became the subject of Wall’s large-scale work, Morning Cleaning (Fig.2). Measuring over 3.5 metres wide, the final photograph captures a panoramic view of the caretaker carefully tending to the pavilion’s transparency, emphasizing themes of clarity, light, and care. Presented within Wall’s signature aluminium-framed glass boxes, it echoes the materiality of Mies van der Rohe’s architecture and its emphasis on precision and order. The artist has explained this aspect of the work:
Despite the apparent dichotomy—Odradek as a symbol of mystery and disorder, and Morning Cleaning as an ode to transparency and meticulous maintenance—both works are intrinsically linked. In both images, surfaces and spaces harbour hidden details. The luminous, pristine environment of the pavilion seems to be a place where everything is visible and controlled, yet subtle artefacts—such as the seemingly insignificant squeegee and cloth on the floor—serve as disturbing parasites amid the modern ideal of ‘less is more’ (Johnson, 1947). These artefacts, visible in the morning light of the pavilion, serve as reminders that Kafka’s (1919) Odradek still lurks behind the curtain—part of two stories, two worlds, caught between the visible and the concealed.