And then the Wind Turned

This body of work originates from a journey through the Highlands and the Isle of Skye. I hold a deep spiritual and sentimental connection to Scotland. Scotland was the first time in my life that I chose a place to live purely out of curiosity and thirst for adventure. My years at university have been the most formative of my life so far. I’ve forged incredible friendships and connections, earned an education and gained a lot of clarity and confidence. I took my first steps into adult life here. I remember being excited about moving abroad, and in the four years that I have lived in Scotland, I never regretted the decision once. I returned to Scotland for a visit to meet up with old friends and introduce them and the country to new companions. Parts of the route were familiar to me, others still new. The same was true for the landscape. During the monotony of the ride my mind started to wander and became fixated on the ever changing, yet familiar textures and shapes that surrounded me. Not for a while had I been passenger in a car for this long. The role of the steered spectator allowed me to observe the environment without watching. After a while, the rhythm of the road put me into a meditative state. A sentimental dialogue between old dreams and new yearnings ensued. Memories of sitting in the back of my father’s car whilst driving through the mountains back home in Austria surfaced and mixed with the new impressions. I photographed the formations that evoked a most uncanny familiarity, as I wanted to capture the moments when old memories and new impressions were seemingly entwined. I took me a long time to understand and differentiate the origin of this nostalgia. I believe that this journey triggered a thought process, which helped me a great deal to come to terms with my current place in life. I simultaneously was able to fathom, and to accept, that my “adolescent home” in Scotland ceased to exist, yet will always be part of me as a person.