Quarantainment

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a dramatic statement to the German nation on television: "Since the Second World War, there has been no challenge to our country where our common solidarity is so important.", we knew very quickly that this year will be read about in history books forever. 

People are dying. Many national health systems are collapsing. Companies and livelihoods are threatened. Fundamental rights such as the freedom of association currently do not exist and the police chase people off from sunny park benches for reading. Covid-19 triggers deep-seated fears. People fill their emptiness with full shopping carts. In the face of their own mortality, they try to wash off their transience until their knuckles become porous - disinfection as a panacea. The world is in quarantine, or in Merkel's words: "At the moment, only distance is an expression of care". Measures that previously seemed unthinkable.

Inspired by self-isolation and social distancing, creativity became my weapon against powerlessness. In a time of the instructed “doing nothing”, I reacted with double the productivity and dealt with the question: How do you photograph a period of social isolation? 

As a creative experiment, I passed a lot of my control over to the internet. For two weeks I followed the tasks of the "Home Alone Survival Guide" Challenge by the German-Namibian artist Max Siedentopf. A challenge about making art out of everyday life at home. My Instagram followers invented the title for the project, they dictated new corona-relevant motives for still lifes and interpreted the pictures: a toast house of cards becomes a Brandenburg Gate interpretation - only more fragile, as unstable as our capitalist system in the current crisis.

Installations that flaunt the excessive possession of toilet paper trigger feelings of security and jealousy among viewers. An image of wet hands that was previously perceived as sexual develops a new meaning in the lockdown: the reminder to wash your hands. My work renames collective fetishes for everything out of stock in the supermarket. 

"Quarantainment" sees itself as an archive-like work that combines different photographic approaches. My work does not reinvent anything, I take the same photos everyone currently takes: the shared experience in isolation. I combine various facets of our surreal reality. From abandoned tourist hotspots in Berlin, to still lifes of toilet paper and hand disinfectants, to taking part in virtual challenges. The combination of the different approaches paints a complex picture of our restricted everyday life. What we need now is humor and a sense of belonging that goes beyond our current situation and leaves no one behind. Right on our doorstep, not only globally. Shared projects are the start for me.