A Notion Of Fragmentation 2016-2023

​Memories are what you no longer want to remember Joan Didion Born in the 1960 in the GDR ” A generation without fatherland and mother tongue" Heiner Mueller This quote by German author Heiner Mueller has haunted me since I read it some years ago. My generation was brought up in one part of a divided Germany, without knowing the other side. With the fall of the wall my roots planted in an artificial totalitarian system became invalidated and irrelevant. I have been living in England for 31 years a bit longer now than I lived behind the Berlin Wall. However, I always feel something is missing, a gulf of understanding between myself, my experiences and my current surroundings. I am unable to feel grounded, my references to my previous life have a disconnect from the culture of the UK, but also from the culture of the New Germany. I can’t relate to it either. Writing and reading helps me to understand my work process and provides a focus, something I can hold on to. It has developed into a compulsive necessity. The notebooks act as a vehicle for Heimatgefuehl (sense of home). I make objects out of; pages from my notebooks and personal documents and place them into familiar surroundings both in Berlin and here in England to try physically connect these places. The objects I have constructed act as a filter and distort the view through the lens, transforming the image and eliciting a response. I feel memories reconstruct themselves, making new connections. Words and numbers appear, a sense of something intangible begins to reveal itself. Recollecting, reiterating and visualising these thoughts, this process of reexamination provides a sense of orientation. The feeling of disconnectedness changes into something I can identify with and have ownership of.