Lassen

The presence of redundant objects can sometimes be hard to bear. My way of containing what I experienced when I had to clear out my childhood home after the death of my father was to take a photograph of every drawer and cupboard that I opened. These images, muted articulations composed with haste and little consideration for any artistic representation, document only a small section of what had been there. They are mostly arbitrary collections of small things that got put away from the 1970s to the  mid 1990s. If they were meant to act as archival records they would fail miserably as they tell so little and suggest so much. Yet as question marks, seen as what they are, trace bearers of a finite moment, they do excel.

As a way of opening up their specific contextualisation as memento mori in my own life I entered into a dialogue with the writers Lisa Spalt and Dieter Sperl. They kindly reacted to some of these images, their words giving them a new lease of life and me a new perspective on how still photography can go beyond its relative dimensions. Their texts can be found in the workbook Lassen.

Excerpt from the workbook Claudia Pilsl: Lassen (2021)