Museum Folkwang is presenting new artworks by Australian artist Rudi Williams, who focuses on the materiality and history of photographic processes.

From November 21, 2025, to January 4, 2026, the Museum Folkwang will present the exhibition In the air we breathe in its 6 ½ Weeks series, featuring new works by Australian artist Rudi Williams (born 1993). She will show photographs and photographic artifacts – some of which she created herself, others she found. Her practice explores the history and technical processes of photography. Among other things, she experiments with early processes such as daguerreotype and cameraless images. Rudi Williams is creating the new group of works as part of her five-month residency as a scholarship holder at the Neue Folkwang Residence.

The exhibition focuses on camera-less photographs and silhouettes in which Rudi Williams explores the tension between absence and presence, memory and loss. The works are displayed on delicate steel structures reminiscent of museum presentations, emphasizing the uniqueness of each object. Photography appears here not as a flood of serial images, but as a collection of individual, breathing 
testimonies.

The title In the air we breathe refers to the perception of signs that are emerging in the spirit of the social zeitgeist, similar to 1839, when the invention of photography was already “in the air” and images were captured for the first time.

Rudi Williams, born in Italy in 1993 and now living in Melbourne, is this year's scholarship holder at the Neue Folkwang Residence. In her exhibitions, she often combines and contrasts photographs taken at different times and in different places. In doing so, she reflects on themes such as memory, temporality, and archives, combining technical curiosity with poetic precision.

6 ½ Weeks
The exhibition format 6 ½ Weeks is based on short-term planning and offers young artists the 
opportunity to present their works at the Museum Folkwang. It provides space for artistic and 
curatorial experiments and enables visitors to discover artists from different countries who are still 
unknown to them.

6 ½ Weeks is sponsored by the Sparda-Bank West Foundation for Art, Culture, and Social Affairs.

Information

6 ½ WEEKS
Rudi Williams
In the air we breathe
November 21 to January 4, 2026
Admission free

Opening
Fr, 21 November 2025, 6:30 p.m.

Welcome and introduction
Vera Pues, Sparda-Bank West Foundation for Art, Culture, and Social Affairs
Artist talk with Rudi Williams and Anna Brohm, curator

Music and bar with support from the Junger Kunstring Folkwang
The exhibition by Aden Miller Intelligence (December 6, 2025 – February 8, 2026) will open on 
December 5, 2025, at the Neuer Essener Kunstverein e.V. Australian artist Aden Miller is the second 
scholarship holder of the Neue Folkwang Residence 2025 alongside Rudi Williams.

Neuer Essener Kunstverein e.V.
Bernestrasse 3, 45127 Essen
neuer-essener-kunstverein.de
info@neuer-essener-kunstverein.de