Biography

Carsten Schneider

About my work

At the centre of my work are two archives: the newspaper and the radio. For many years I have been working with a material that has long shaped everyday life and is now slowly disappearing: the printed newspaper. From thousands of clippings—words, headlines, fragments—I create text-based images, colour collages and series such as Nothing in the Newspaper, in which the paper itself begins to speak: the newspaper as material, as memory and as a trace of the present. Language, image and halftone patterns condense into new, dense surfaces.


In parallel, I deconstruct broadcast material from Deutschlandfunk. I collect and cut original recordings, reassembling them into tightly layered radio plays that reveal the inner structures of the medium. For me, image and sound are siblings: both are born from the patient processes of archiving, sorting and montage.



Both strands belong together. I am interested in what remains of our daily flood of information once content and topicality have been stripped away: text as material, sound as raw matter, the newspaper as the skin of a disappearing medium. My works ask how time, language and news can be stored—how information turns into image and sound, and what gets lost along the way. A disposable daily medium becomes long-term memory, and everyday sounds turn into a concentrated form of radio art.

Working method

In practice, the work begins with collecting: words, headlines and voices. Over years, the material is ordered, cut apart and reassembled—sometimes guided by an inner image, sometimes by a rule (alphabet, date, series), sometimes by the quick, honest impulse of what catches the eye.



What interests me is how form can be drawn from what is fleeting. Whatever is news quickly becomes the past; paper creases, language breaks down, voices disappear. The works try to draw order out of decay—and, at the same time, to disturb that order again.

Short biography

  • Born 1971 in Bad Oldesloe (Schleswig-Holstein), grew up in Rendsburg; lives and works in Berlin.
  • Studied Applied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim (Literature/Theatre/Media, minor in Music), diploma in 1997.
  • Since 2000 working as a freelance artist: author of more than 25 theatre plays and numerous short stories, creator of newspaper collages and original-sound radio plays.
  • Solo exhibitions and larger presentations include Akademie der Künste, Berlin (Poesiefestival), St. Matthäus Foundation, Berlin, and various galleries in Hildesheim, Berlin, Zehdenick and Brussels.
  • His radio works have received several awards and prizes and have been broadcast by Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and other public radio stations.
  • Artist residency: Schloss Wiepersdorf (composer’s residency, 2023)
  • Since 2012: Hospice volunteer (end-of-life companion), Berlin.

Awards & Honors

Awards

  • 1995 – Ochtersum Literature Prize (Poetry)
  • 2005 – Dussmann Critics' Prize (2nd Place)
  • 2006 – Prenzlauer Berg Literature Prize (2nd Place)
  • 2006 – Open Mike, House for Poetry (Finalist)
  • 2007 – MDR Literature Prize (Finalist)
  • 2010 – Track 5, ORF (Radio Play Award)
  • 2012 – Leipzig Radio Play Summer (Finalist)
  • 2013 – Berlin Radio Play Festival (2nd Place twice)
  • 2017 – Leipzig Radio Play Summer (1st Place)
  • 2018 – Karl Sczuka Support Prize, SWR
  • 2020 – Berlin Radio Play Festival (Finalist)
  • 2021 – Szlabbesz Prize, Krems (Radio Play Award)
  • 2024 – max15, ARD / ORF / SRF (Finalist)
  • 2025 – max15, ARD / ORF / SRF (Finalist)


Grants & Residencies

  • 1999 – Radio Play Authors' Grant, LCB (Literarisches Colloquium Berlin)
  • 2023 – Composition Residency, Schloss Wiepersdorf

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

  • 2017 – Poetry Festival, Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste), Berlin
  • 2019 – Artgenossen Gallery, Hildesheim
  • 2023 – 53rd Cabinet Exhibition, St. Matthew’s (St. Matthäus), Berlin


Group Exhibitions

  • 2019 – Klosterscheune Gallery, Zehdenick
  • 2019 – Collagistas, International Collage Festival, Brussels
  • 2020 – Weißer Elefant Gallery, Auguststraße, Berlin
  • 2020 – International Collage Art, Warsaw
  • 2024 – KOOK BOOK, Visual Poetry, Spor Klübü, Berlin


Documentation of the solo exhibition 'Deconstruction in Word, Image, and Sound',

Academy of Arts (ADK), Berlin, 2017

Publications

2024 – "Carsten Schneider – Zeitungskunst" (7 visual works and review), in: Das lässt sich sehen, etcetera press.

2023 – "Im Wartezimmer" (Short Story) and interview, in: Armin Nagel, Schöner Warten – Über den Umgang mit einem unvermeidlichen Zustand, Lübbe LIFE.

2021 – "mehr" (Newspaper collage in the Artist Directory), in: kolaj #34 - A magazine about contemporary collage, p. 66, Maison Kasini.

2012 – Interview and presentation of ten plays, in: Die Chroniken von Heersum – Von der Steinzeit zur Sternzeit, Gebrüder Gerstenberg, Hildesheim.

2008 – "Der kleine Muck" (Play), with Uli Jäckle and Suzanne J. Hensel, Verlag Felix Bloch Erben.

2007 – "In der Stadt" (Short Story), in: Die Zusammensetzung der Welt, Mitteldeutscher Verlag.

2006 – "Im Sommergarten" (Short Story), in: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin (ed.) – 14th Open Mike, Allitera Verlag.