Champagne in the Cellar

“Speaking figuratively about absurdity, Samuel Beckett says: it is the remedy for our times when words fail us. And in my opinion this also applies to the loss of people. His work also deals with non-functioning communication – communication in a vacuum. Consequently, the theatre of the absurd always has tragi-comic aspects, and I want to transfer this into my photographs; like, for example, taking an intimate item, like my grandparents' dentures, and combining them with objects that have no meaningful relationship to them.

My grandmother collected porcelain animals. This porcelain horse was expensive and she loved it because it was connected to particular memories. When she was young, she had a beautiful white horse, a white horse name Rosa. When they were forced to flee, Sudeten Germans were not allowed to own property, so the animal had to be shot.

When I began working on the Champagne in the Cellar project, I came across this porcelain figure. The denture was there, because the hospital gives the personal belongings of people who have passed away to their relatives. The horse and the teeth are very intimate memorabilia of my grandparents."

You can discover more about the series in LFI 03/2021.