Maria Muhar

A run-down gas station bistro at Austria’s lowest point, the Mariannengraben. At 113 meters above sea level, alongside a variety of drinks, world events flow across the sticky counter: Failed barbecue nights, the inability to drink from an EU-standardized buttermilk carton, hardcore heartbreak, and eternal loyalty to the internal combustion engine in Austria, the land of cars.
Fueled by Melange coffee and apricot schnapps, the conversation soon turns to the really big ideas: freedom, responsibility, and justice. Power, status, and their symbols. Late at night, the entrenched positions seem unwilling to budge even a millimeter—only Storm Herta is rapidly bearing down on the gas station. And as the water level rises, even in the Mariana Trench the lines that were just moments ago so clearly drawn begin to blur.
Between dark satire and existential urgency, Maria Muhar skids through
a ludicrous reflection on a time that’s almost impossible to grasp anymore. Unless, that is, one
tackles it at its lowest point.