vorwärts, rückwärts, seitwärts, ran.
There is a common german saying called »Ein Hut, ein Stock, ein Regenschirm« (A hat, a stick, an umbrella) that my parents taught me when I was a child. Those sayings are especially known for their chaotic and incoherent text. They mainly consist of things, numbers or everyday occurrences that have nothing to do with each other. This saying also comes with a little dance in which you stop, tap your feet in each direction and put up one leg at the end.
When I was a child my parents used to go with me on those dreary sunday walks. Often when I did not want to go further they started to repeat the saying to keep me going. On the one hand it reminds me of an unworried past when I was a child growing up in the countryside playing in the garden and in the woods. On the other hand it reminds me that sometimes you need help and somebody who motivates you to keep going.
Lately I did not want to go further. Depression hit me in the middle of the pandemic, I lost my job, got penniless, had a breakup, needed to move out of my flat. And I did not want to go further. I simply did not know where to go. Forwards, backwards, sideways? And then I just stopped for a while.
This project visualizes my dealing with depression with the help of a lot of tiny steps. Mainly forwards.
Photobook “vorwärts, rückwärts, seitwärts, ran.”
Softcover / 148mm x 210mm / 152 pages
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