du sagtest quarzit / sagtest weiß

My grandfather and my daughter never met. He died just a few days after she was born. My mother is convinced that he waited for the notice of her birth. "du sagtest quarzit / sagtest weiß" aims to find traces of the past and connect them to the future.

My grandfather and my daughter never met. He died just a few days after she was born. My mother is convinced that he waited for the notice of her birth.

"du sagtest quarzit / sagtest weiß" aims to find traces of the past and connect them to the future. It is an attempt to preserve memories and pass them on from one generation to another - in photographs, poetry and through the process of their creation.

The projects consists of the following elements:
- 12 handmade black & white silver gelatin prints in 50 x 60cm, mounted on aluminium boards in frames made of oak wood
- 15 handmade silver gelatin prints in 24 x 30cm, unframed
- a poem (originally written in German, English translation below)
- a handmade artist book (16 x 17,6cm) with 82 pages, 43 photographs and the poem, printed on Sennelier Le Maxi 90gsm sketching paper, edition of 40 numbered and signed copies

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Poem

a word hits the ground
it shatters turns stone
and settles with others
beneath the moss

we walked across
i had no idea
a thread a relict
a circle closed

the steps they rinsed
the stone from the stone
they helped the time
to pass

they hollowed and parted
what once was known
perhaps a secret
perhaps just the snow

[...]

quartzite in the seams
in layers in mouth
just enough
to be said

as shadow that lingers
that already speaks
of then of again
of the hidden rhyme

the hands a house
its beams in the folds
we live therein
in-between in the gap

you said quartzite
said knows or white
and I wondered
but didn’t ask

you

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The chunks and pieces of white quartzite that run like a leitmotif through the project, lie scattered in the woods around my hometown.

I learned that they used to be part of a larger rock structure, whose softer components were washed away and eroded over millions of years. Only the white quartzite remained, enduring time and the forces of nature.

It seems to me, that it’s much the same with memories.