This photographic work is a moment of pause – a moment against automatic looking away.
It is meant to allow a second glance after the third glance-past. Not at a “problem,” but at people. Not at the deficit, but at existence – with all its dignity, vulnerability, hope.
Those who look with open eyes do not see only poverty. They see traces of life, stories without a safe space. They may see ourselves – in a different situation.
This work poses questions to a society that has learned to look away. Questions to cities where the visible becomes invisible, while the seemingly invisible takes up more and more visible space. Questions to us – who walk past people every day whose lives unfold outdoors: with the asphalt as a bed, the sky as a roof.
When did we actually start to get used to it – to people sleeping on asphalt? To freezing bodies in doorways, to tattered cardboard boxes in shop windows, to musty blankets in parking bays, to sleeping bags under bridges. To all those looks we do not return. And much more importantly: When will we finally begin to do something against the growing homelessness? Or are we simply too good at enduring – as long as it’s not our own pillow that is missing?
Dreaming of a real canopy bed and full bread baskets
Captured in Hamburg’s Schanzenviertel, Rote Flora – between scene, longing, and social reality.
A person sleeps on a staircase, resting on crates – once filled with bread that fed someone. Today they carry the restless sleep of a desperate person. The urban space becomes a bedroom, the boundary between visibility and displacement. How much imagination does it take to envision a home amidst cold and noise?
Between the desire for security and the reality of scarcity remains a silent dream of arrival.
Between Sugar Water and Predicament
Living where space has no doors. Kitsch consumption aesthetics and existential distress side by side. At exhibitions, I am often asked: Is it okay to show something like this? Isn’t it voyeuristic? The life that becomes visible in these photographs exists – it does not disappear just because we look away. The question of voyeurism often reveals our reluctance to confront reality. Precisely because it is uncomfortable, these images must be shown. Art can create space for what we prefer to ignore – and thus compel us to truly look.
Wanting to Hide and Yet Be Seen
with our backs to the wall / and the invisible / in front of us / the stone flatters / so warm / like the cold / of having to be / we whistle her / the flute in the deforested / lung-wing forest / a heart song / from mighty / dreams / a tone falls / to the ground / a tree grows / beneath it we will soon lie / loving / in the warmest human shadow
—
Text: Petrus Akkordeon, artist in Berlin
Suffering.
Loyalty.
Suffering,
of loyalty.
Suffering
of loyalty.
NO
APP
BUILDS
WALLS
TRACES OF OBVIOUS FAILURE
What remains when no one looks anymore. No face, no body – just remnants: a blanket, an empty cup, a mark in the dust, some trash. Absence that is loud. And I ask myself the question: Who has failed here? The person who had to leave this place? Or us – those who walk by and could have helped?
These traces tell of lives that have taken place in these spaces – outside, in the draft of our indifference. They are quieter than a glance, but clearer than any headline.
We see them – and look away. Because we have learned that it is possible.
With my photography, I want to interrupt this looking away.
IN-BETWEEN SPACES
Urban scenes where contrasts become visible: closeness and distance, prosperity and scarcity, ease and survival – side by side, within the same frame. These are moments where different worlds of life meet without touching.
Nothing That Disturbs
No one lies in the shadow here –
only outside the field of vision.
Order remains intact,
shop windows shine,
promises stand still.
In between: a body
that no longer asks
if there is space.
There lies a life.
And no one stumbles.
REALLY ACHIEVING SOMETHING WITH YOUR OWN IDEAS
Advertising speaks of success. The ground speaks of the present. Two worlds of life – separated by just a few centimeters of wall – collide without touching. This image tells of the social tension that runs through our cities: between advertising and reality, between narratives of upward mobility and the reality of decline. It does not assign blame – but it asks questions: What says more about our society: the poster or the ground in front of it? Who among these people truly has a dream? How much reality fits next to an advertising space? How close can something be that we do not want to see? What of it can go away?
A LITTLE STORY ABOUT THOSE
WHO LOVE TO TRAVEL AND ABOUT THOSE
WHO CAN’T EVEN MAKE IT HOME
Fragmented Reality
Beneath the radiant mosaic “The Night” by Jan Thorn Prikker at the Ehrenhof in Düsseldorf sleeps a forgotten existence. Between the grandeur of art and the harshness of life, worlds collide that are rarely considered together. Just as the mosaic is composed of many small, broken pieces, so too is this person’s life a picture made up of shattered moments. These quiet fractures reflect a fractured society, in which beauty and hardship lie close together without ever truly coming together.
AVERAGE CONTENTS OF A TRASH BIN IN BERLIN
A few lost hopes / 2 half-eaten döners / unread newspapers / 7 rejections / many yes buts / crumpled cardboard coffee cups / 3 maybes / 4 do you still love me’s? / an empty wallet / deposit bottles / a scornful glance / three forgotten adventures / one and a half beautiful promises.
Average level of interest from the light and lovely:
—
Text: Susanne Schmidt, author in Berlin
Searching for What Others Don’t Miss
The virus doesn’t care whether you have a home. It doesn’t ask your name, your origin, or whether someone is waiting for you. It knows no address, no care, no exceptions – and no compassion either.
It also finds those long overlooked by others, those no one misses.
DREAMING OF A STOVE OF MY OWN
“My roof is made of sky, so I have no electricity and it’s hard to cook there. I like cooking, but I haven’t cooked for a long time. I used to, for my wife and friends. Sometimes. I’d like to have a cooker again. It’s nearly Christmas. I’m not allowed to cook in the accommodation, real chefs cook there – I asked them once. I don’t go there any more anyway. I don’t drink beer, it’s only for deposit, someone put it in there for me. The angel too. I’m going to lie down now, it’s cold today…”
Who Endures More Cold:
The One Who Freezes – or the One Who Looks Away?
HOMEMADE BUNS
Homemade means:
closeness. warmth. care.
And a seat at a set table.
But outside, broad daylight sleeps the tiredness
of yet another lost night
– on cold steps.
There, hunger is loudly silent,
and silence does not fill you up.
Between Threshold and Silence
A place that is not inside,
but no longer truly outside.
The wind knows his name,
the doorbell does not.
A moment of rest at the door
that never opens for him.
W O R K I N P R O G R E S S…
E N D E
