murmeln des wassers

The archival cabinet contains the images: my photographs, newspaper clippings, negatives and screenshots are preserved and arranged in a deliberate order, together forming the photo series 'murmeln des wassers'.

The series was conceived in collaboration with the Archiv Michael Schmidt foundation for photography, during on-site research in Brandenburg. It addresses the Oder, a river and borderland that has been extensively documented across German media, owing to historical events such as flood catastrophes, land reclamation and political negotiations on its ground. Yet can it be reimagined beyond its established visual frames?

By borrowing institutional furniture, I organise the collected and found materials into a site-responsive perspective of my own. I am interested in re-combining and decomposing these historical images, in challenging the modes of representation of the events, and in disturbing their surfaces by uncontrolled forces. Viewers are invited to activate the display by opening up individual drawers. Once pulled out, a drawer releases a “flood” of marbles that roll and murmur¹ over the glossy surfaces of the photographs.

¹ In German, “murmur” translates as murmeln and means both “marbles” (noun, plural) and “murmuring” (from the verb murmeln), a word commonly used for the sound of flowing water.