I was living for two weeks in a Hausprojekt in Berlin.
I am traveling through Germany for a year (I did the same thing last year in France) I like to know different life forms and also live them to understand them. That is why when I was proposed to live in this hausprojekt I accepted since I found it very interesting and of course I wanted to capture that in my photographic memory. In this house live more than 30 people. Men do not live in this house. This house is inhabited by women, queer, bisexual, among others. I lived in a community where one of the main motivations is to deliver and receive support among those who feel vulnerable in a society that wants to classify them as male and female. When I proposed to the plenum to make a photographic memory of the house, the answer was yes but with a condition, that their faces were not shown. This community is also politics, even though Hausprojekt has a link between the state and the owner of the property and they pay rent, they are under the police's eye. Many issues are lived and discussed in this house, on the one hand there is an anarchist spirit of not contributing to the system of consumerism and exploitation of work. There are also many backgrounds of its inhabitants related to the identity of each one's sexuality. Many of the stories are sadly related to experiences of sexual abuse that occurred in childhood which have repercussions in the present. Then, on a Friday when the distribution of food arrives that comes from the supermarkets and that are in good condition. Part of the community meets in one of the kitchens to prepare lunch with fresh and tasty products.
I wanted to portray what was happening in this small space, where between 10 and 15 people entered and left, cooked, laughed and talked. I wanted to keep quiet and observe and find a way to not show their faces. I set up my camera to expose three to four photos at the same time and started shooting at different situations that instinctively called me. When I saw the result I felt a great satisfaction because I saw what was happening there. In a single image a lot of tangible information was gathered, such as the ingredients, the colors of the vegetables, hands cooking, legs, dog legs, tattoos, all in different directions. It was a chaos of information where the light slipped between these elements like a network that unites everything. And finally the light once more brought me painted in this memory my experience of living in this special house. Seeing as the light that entered through that vertical window and how it was reflected in the warm bodies, in the intense colors of the vegetables, in the textures of the kitchen and in the atmosphere that was produced that day when preparing and sharing food.
I am traveling through Germany for a year (I did the same thing last year in France) I like to know different life forms and also live them to understand them. That is why when I was proposed to live in this hausprojekt I accepted since I found it very interesting and of course I wanted to capture that in my photographic memory. In this house live more than 30 people. Men do not live in this house. This house is inhabited by women, queer, bisexual, among others. I lived in a community where one of the main motivations is to deliver and receive support among those who feel vulnerable in a society that wants to classify them as male and female. When I proposed to the plenum to make a photographic memory of the house, the answer was yes but with a condition, that their faces were not shown. This community is also politics, even though Hausprojekt has a link between the state and the owner of the property and they pay rent, they are under the police's eye. Many issues are lived and discussed in this house, on the one hand there is an anarchist spirit of not contributing to the system of consumerism and exploitation of work. There are also many backgrounds of its inhabitants related to the identity of each one's sexuality. Many of the stories are sadly related to experiences of sexual abuse that occurred in childhood which have repercussions in the present. Then, on a Friday when the distribution of food arrives that comes from the supermarkets and that are in good condition. Part of the community meets in one of the kitchens to prepare lunch with fresh and tasty products.
I wanted to portray what was happening in this small space, where between 10 and 15 people entered and left, cooked, laughed and talked. I wanted to keep quiet and observe and find a way to not show their faces. I set up my camera to expose three to four photos at the same time and started shooting at different situations that instinctively called me. When I saw the result I felt a great satisfaction because I saw what was happening there. In a single image a lot of tangible information was gathered, such as the ingredients, the colors of the vegetables, hands cooking, legs, dog legs, tattoos, all in different directions. It was a chaos of information where the light slipped between these elements like a network that unites everything. And finally the light once more brought me painted in this memory my experience of living in this special house. Seeing as the light that entered through that vertical window and how it was reflected in the warm bodies, in the intense colors of the vegetables, in the textures of the kitchen and in the atmosphere that was produced that day when preparing and sharing food.
