Global Cultures of Farewell The desire to honour the dead is universal. It exists in all cultures, at all times. People want to say farewell to their loved ones with dignity. Depending on culture, religion and even region, there is great diversity in the forms of burial, rituals and customs. Since ten years I document this diversity, shooting on cemeteries worldwide. Chinese, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Christian-Orthodox. Places of silence. Often peaceful, often green oases in an increasingly noisy, increasingly hectic world. Silence Alive.
Safari auf den Skurrillen / Safari Bizarre
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Reality sometimes strikes me as real-life satire. As a photo flâneur, situations, symbols, irritating messages, and misguided news catch my eye. I let myself be surprised. And marvel through the lens of my camera.
Out of Nowhere
The abstraction in these images allows me to remove people, animals and scenes from their context. To isolate them means mystifying them, while at the same time placing them at the centre of attention. o quote an advertising slogan for the Smart small car: These pictures are “reduced to the max”.
Farbstrakte |
Colabstracts
South Africa is not black, not white. It is coloured. As a nation, in its aesthetics. The photographs were taken in the Muslim-Malay neighbourhood of Cape Town, Bo-Kaap, and at the beach huts in Muizenberg. I felt like a chronicler of the interplay of colour, form and light. And of those who expressed their joie de vivre in vibrant colours. It was the first time for me to experiment with radical simplification and abstraction. The images remind me the Bauhaus architecture and structures of the ensemble I live in, designed by Bruno Taut in 1929
Soulmirror | Portraits …….Photographic encounters. Often in countries where I worked as a reporter. Africa, Asia, Europe of course, Germany. People who trusted me. I could portray the from a perceived closeness. Faces that reflect the soul. Faces in which you can read whole life stories. The trust of the people photographed is a gift, time and time again.
Rwanda |
After the Genocide
More than 30 years have passed since the genocide in Rwanda. But the past is not over. There is hardly another society that has been so traumatised, with the consequences of trauma being passed on from one generation to the next. There are far too few therapists in the country who could heal them. Moreover, the official policy is: „Let’s forget about it, look ahead, rebuild the economy.“ But the deep emotional wounds are reflected in people’s faces. And everyone knows whether they and their families were perpetrators or victims at that time. Through my work on various reports, I gained access to and the trust of people. I was even able to attend healing sessions and take photographs.
Calligraphy by Nature ……..Calligraphy comes from the Greek: ‘the art of beautiful writing’. In this case, it is not medieval monks, Hebrew sofer or Japanese ink artists who are at work. It is nature itself that writes beauty. On a deserted beach in South Africa. With signs, letters and ligatures. What language? What meaning? It cannot be known. Drawn today, blurred by the tide tomorrow. As in the Buddhist tradition of water calligraphy: written on a hot stone, the letters disappear as soon as they are written. Transience, eternal.
Ebony & Ivory 2019
The Ivory Coast is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa with particularly high ethnic diversity. I had the opportunity to teach at a journalism school for a month. This gave me the chance to get to know and love the country. As so often, the camera was the medium that allowed me to connect and interact with the people and nature. The result is a tribute to a country that is trying to make the most of the diversity of its population and nature.
Festival of Lights | Berlin
Since 2004, Berlin has been bathed in mysterious light on certain days. Light artists are invited to illuminate iconic buildings such as the rebuilt City Palace, the Cathedral or the ‘Alex’ television tower. With their installations, the artists add new layers to the familiar buildings. Layers of meaning, secrets, symbols, fairy tales and visions. Photography means ‘painting with light’ – during the nights of the Festival of Lights, one of the largest in the world, I was light painter with my camera, too.
Patterns of Life | Borneo
I was in Borneo for a report on environmentally friendly palm oil production. Contrary to my initial impulse to photograph the lush, vibrant abundance of the rainforest in colour, I opted for black and white. For reduction. For the diversity of patterns and structures of plants, trees and fruits as an expression of the infinite inventiveness of living things.
Unexpected New | Zealand ………New Zealand must be photographed in colour, that much is clear. Fifty shades of green. Or is it? As a photo flâneur, I was fascinated by the bizarre, the unexpected, moments of surprise. Three larger-than-life figures in a World War II museum, a hand walking across a roof, a curious domestic pig of a species never seen before, 185 white chairs at an intersection in Christchurch (a reminder of the 2011 earthquake, when exactly that many people died). Many of the magnificent murals in Christchurch were created because the earthquake had torn large gaps in the buildings. With the wall art, the city tried to turn the wounds into something good.
Tilal Utique – Place of Peace ……. I was alone in Tilal Utique for several days. An oasis of peace, half an hour away from the vibrant capital of Tunisia, Tunis. I was not completely alone, my camera and constant companion was with me. Through the lens, with nothing to disturb me, I was able to explore the architecture: the lines; the play of light; the embeddedness in the landscape. This deep silence. I am convinced that you can only create a place of peace like this if you are at peace with yourself. I sincerely hope that I can be an ambassador of this peace with my pictures.
Mallorca … as if painted Mallorca, the magnet. The ‘Isla Bonita’, the beautiful island. The tourist stronghold. Is it still possible to discover new aspects of this oft-photographed beauty? I wanted to. I had to. I tried. With a view and a special colourfulness that resembles the impression of old landscape painting.