In his autobiographical text Der Keller. Eine Entziehung, Thomas Bernhard describes a turning point in his youth: leaving school in 1947 to begin an apprenticeship in a small supermarket in Salzburg’s Scherzhauserfeldsiedlung. His decision was both a retreat from a rigid education system and a quiet act of defiance—an entry into the world of labor and everyday life.

In 2014, Zara Pfeifer revisited this place—now a modern Interspar—to retrace Bernhard’s story. She photographed a current apprentice, the surrounding architecture, and Bernhard’s former path to work. Her images are accompanied by selected quotes from Der Keller. Lehre reflects on memory, labor, and the quiet persistence of personal stories within the standardized architecture of contemporary retail spaces.

As part of the installation, Pfeifer printed one of the photographs on a PVC strip curtain—commonly used in supermarkets.

The series was exhibited in Ware/Widerstand in the summer of 2025 at Plateau Vienna, as part of a duo exhibition with Sunny Pudert.