Into the Void

Downsyndrom + puberty: An examination of the social perception of our children, where something is « missing » and the perception of our children of themselves, where everything is fine is as it is.

Rio & Ana

They look like laughing, a little mean old ladies who have been friends with each other their whole lives.

Same wishes, same longings.

Rio, the daredevil, walking further and further away from the bathing spot, to where it's muddy with sticks in the ground to collect more leaves from the oak trees. Ana, the cautious one who doesn't like unsafe ground under her feet. Then again Ana, the confident one, who likes to travel and dresses with Rio in costumes for the journey, packs dolls and suitcases and wanders across the meadows, haystacks, canals and back again for a picnic.

This series is an invitation to come along, to be integrated into the summer in the country beyond house building and work, and daily language exercises consisting of whole sentences with subject-predicate-object, not just the suggestion of words like a language game without initials and with interchanged letters consonants.

We met Ana again this summer. They were both born in Berlin with a year difference. Our midwife brought us together and a true and deep friendship grew between the girls and their mothers. They grow up with the same grooves. On 1200km local difference and two different cultures. They rolled into their own little world of freedom this summer. And that is where I want to start this work. Until Rio moves out and lives alone. I want to accompany them in this overwhelming step of growing up and becoming a woman.

This letting go.

The starting point for this series was the end of last summer. When my daughter suddenly stood on the roof of the house next door. On the 3rd floor. Waving down into the void.. I felt this was the time of a new era, the beginning of her cry for freedom, for being big and for self-determination, for excitement and adventure, but also her overconfidence.

Rio is 10, according to doctors she will be going through puberty this year, and she has various problems with verbal communication.

In addition to my personal shock processing of crossing a threshold again, we come to an important topic here: an examination of the social and often also our own perception of our children, where something is « missing » and the perception of our children of themselves, where everything is fine is as it is, because they are alive and have a right to be perceived as equals, only then can something special enrich our lives again.

Her « I want help and I'm acting like a baby but my body and its hormones tell me to become a woman ».

We enter a world of adults with the minds of children. How to give her the freedom and satisfaction of self-control, all with the means and tools she has?

I find this moment both scary and exciting, and I think the world should definitely be able to keep an eye on us.

The Letting go. Into the void..