Afterimages (2016)
We moved to our new home in the summer of 1989 — for practical reasons — on a long weekend at the end of August. It was the same weekend that the Pan-European Picnic took place on the border of Austria and Hungary. After more than 40 years of division by the Iron Curtain, the two countries opened up their borders (for a few hours), letting people pass freely, and allowing East German refugees to flee to West Germany through Austria. The event was crucial to the Revolutions of 1989, leading to the lifting of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany three months later. The only difference I noticed then was that my school was closer to our new home.
Looking at the photograph through a microscopic magnifier, I can clearly see distinguishable clouds of colours, dye clouds of cyans, magentas, yellows; cluttered groups of grains. (...)
How do the meanings of place, distance and belonging shift in the context of our relativist, constantly changing world? How can we redefine our sense of place in a progressive and outward looking way, shift our spatial understanding from points towards vectors and velocities? Where are our roots? Where are our routes? How would this photograph change if I gave it a title, instead of Untitled? REAR, VIEW, FEAR, TURN, OPEN, LOOP, FAKE, MEMO, BLUE, GATE, AXIS, JINX, FADE, WAKE or BIAS? (...) It has become inevitable to work with this picture.
