An autumn (2022)
Visual book; with Iris de Fine Olivarius.Summer, 2022. We are moving in together. Little by little, we build a home together. I throw stuff away, you throw stuff away, the rest of the stuff is ours. We rearrange the living room, move the dining table, move the sofa and armchairs, try and sit on them. We spent time in the various seating arrangements, to see how they feel. Then we move everything around again.
While moving in together may be a romantic expression of wanting to be together, it is also a significant change that breaks apart a lot of routines and habits. Slowly, a new way of living is being built, and daily life is redefined. Along the way, some independence is lost, perhaps to be replaced by a new level of closeness.
In the book, everyday life is examined with its heavy and happy moments. My partner and I document our life together photographically in the months after we move in together. From this emerges a story about relationships, intimacy, and daily life – and a personal insight into what this can entail.
Over the course of the book, caring and intimacy is unfolded alongside exhaustion and uncertainty. The structure of the book underlines a cyclical manner of events. But still, changes are occurring and perspectives change: The camera changes hands, and a mutual display of caring emerges. And the relation grows more resilient as it becomes closer and more intimate.
Images in the book alternate between narrative images of everyday life and more poetic interpretations. Fragments of text are dispersed along the way, adding new aspects to the narrative. It all weaves together into a story about love and empathy, about caring and being cared for.