The great Austrian writer Gert Jonke would have turned 80 years old on February 8, 2026. On this occasion, the Musil Museum is showing works by the photographer Nurith Wagner-Strauss.

It is known that poet Gert Jonke, born shortly after World War II in Klagenfurt, was a passionate train traveler who, for example, did not hesitate to take a trip to Munich because he could only purchase a very specific music CD there at that time.
Nurith Wagner-Strauss, who photographed numerous productions for the Vienna Volkstheater among other projects, recounts that the idea to portray Gert Jonke as if he were “on the road” arose in 1999 during conversations after the premiere of Jonke's play “Insektarium.”

The writer and the photographer soon set out for the Vienna public transport system to find the origins of the poetic adventures. “How much you believe you have left behind at the train station on this journey, because nothing troubles you at the moment and you feel almost weightless,” Jonke narrates in his text “The Distant Sound.” The photos are not least a testament to this pursuit of weightlessness.

Nurith Wagner-Strauss studied baroque recorder and music pedagogy. She has been working as a freelance photographer in Vienna since 1987 and passionately photographs people around the world, especially women. Wagner-Strauss recently found great success with her book “We Wanted to Live” Women Remember (Anton Pustet, 2025). The publication offers a diverse perspective on women's everyday stories.