she is silent when she sews, silent for hours … she is silent, and she is thinking

she is silent when she sews, silent for hours … she is silent, and she is thinking

4 archival pigment prints on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 188, b/w, 100 cm × 158 cm, 100 cm × 110 cm, 100 cm × 128 cm, 100 cm × 110 cm, fabric, Alu-Dibond, plexiglass, glass, maple frames

2023

Coloured scraps of fabric are laid over enlarged black-and-white photographs from family albums. An almost rectangular rust-red linen fabric, still bearing the price tag from 1957, covers large parts of a field while at the top, tractors plough the land, surrounded by newly built houses. Large pieces have been torn from two smock aprons. The tattered remains are reminiscent of the absent bodies. The floral pattern of one smock resembles the smock worn by the woman in one photograph. Her body and hands are leaning into the picture from the left. Contrasting with the stylised flowers of the smock, the plants of the garden in the background appear chaotic. The T-shape of a 1970s fabric with a floral pattern in turquoise, green, and purple is the remnant of a fabric used to make a dress – its negative form, so to speak. The colourful floral pattern with its stylised representation of femininity is contrasted by the gable of a farm and its dung heap in the black-and-white photograph behind.