The Power And Poetry Of Pain

The series "The Power And Poetry Of Pain" deals with the topic of physical pain. Due to several foot injuries as well as joint inflammations, I am confronted with chronic pain and faced great challenges as a photographer and yoga teacher. Pain is nevertheless an interesting phenomenon for me, which I would like to examine more closely: with a humorous eye and an extra portion of color. For this ongoing project, I work with handmade sculptures, self-portraits and landscape photographs. I built sculptures from whimsical objects, flowers, needles, nails, ribbons and taxidermy. By using perishable materials and sharp objects, one's vulnerability becomes clear. The landscape photographs and details were taken in great pain, often after taking painkillers. Together with pleasure, pain is ascribed an important psychosocial function, serving as a drive for the individual to act and to evaluate and categorize his environment. The elementary sensations pleasure and pain are already understood by John Locke as indispensable correlates and counterparts. Immanuel Kant even speaks of the fact that it is through pain that we "first of all feel our life", because "without it lifelessness would o