This trio was originally created for Fragile Intervention at Vienna Design Week 2023, where Anna Riess transformed an entire room into an immersive, sensory experience. The floor was blanketed in lavender, offering visitors a moment of pause and rest amidst the fast pace of everyday life.

At the heart of the installation stood a bed—an invitation to lie down, reflect, and feel. Through this gesture, Riess drew attention to the physical and emotional toll of late capitalist society on the human body. Surrounding the bed were altered everyday objects, reimagined through materiality and subtle humanization—a process the artist playfully refers to as the “nippleization of the everyday.” Together, these elements offered a tender, humorous, and critical reflection on care, rest, and the transience of human life.

Anna Riess is a multidisciplinary artist and cultural anthropologist based in Vienna. Her work explores themes of embodiment, emotion, and interbodily relations through materials like clay, metal, and textiles. Deeply influenced by her experience of motherhood, she transforms everyday objects into symbolic forms - one of her gestures she describes as the “nippelization of the everyday.”

Riess is the co-founder of the Clayground retreat and the creator of Circle of Clay, a workshop series she has led at institutions such as the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna or the Hotel Kai36 in Graz. Her workshops invite participants—regardless of prior experience—to develop their own sculptural language through hands-on engagement with clay.

Her sculptural objects possess a strong visual identity and tactile presence, marked by a recognizable aesthetic and a willingness to push the boundaries of material behavior. Especially drawn to the tactility of clay, Riess explores how movement and fluidity can be captured in form—leaving the trace of the hand visible in its hardened state. With a strong interest in local materials and interdisciplinary exchange, her practice bridges artistic, social, and ecological concerns in both conceptual and applied ways.