Really stoked to end a year of many firsts on another high and have some work included in the latest issue of @der_greif curated by @hankwillisthomas !
‘Tomorrow is Today’ will be released at Paris Photo on November 13. Give me a shout if you’re around, would love to see some familiar faces.
Hello again, Christoph here for the last day of our takeover.
When I began this project, I had only just returned to a country that frightened me. Within a decade, political shifts once unimaginable had become a reality. How could this happen in a society that so proudly lauds its own ‘critical self-examination’ and national culture of remembrance?
Memory is neither fixed nor owned; it’s a conversation that orients us in time and space. It can draw us toward each other or pull us apart. What we choose to remember informs who we are and how we belong. In times of rapid change, calls for a return to ‘normalcy’ and national unity often mask exclusion and clash with values of tolerance and pluralism.
Drawing inspiration from magical realism, the project moves between observation and imagination, seeking an alternative space between familiar polarities where firm beliefs soften, new meanings emerge, and multiple realities can intersect.
There is still time to catch our graduate show @fourcornerse2 featuring the brilliant works of my friends @alanbulley , @edwiredjones , @emir.han.demirel , @jj.helliker , and @madihamaliik - here until 6 pm today!
Hey, Christoph here, wrapping up this year’s graduating class takeover.
The project I’ve been working on over the past two years is rooted in my own coming of age in a unified Germany and reflects on the experience of a generation shaped by a national culture of remembrance—now increasingly confronted with its inherent limitations.
Since the 1990s, Holocaust-centered remembrance has become embedded in educational initiatives, civic discourse, and public spaces in an attempt to transform historical guilt into moral responsibility and an enduring commitment to ‘Never again’. Yet today, we find ourselves at odds with a reality where the hopes of our upbringing are challenged by resurgent nationalism, and public memory still struggles to embrace the complexity and plurality of a society in flux.
Through a journey along historic and present fault lines, the work explores how memory persists and evolves—not only in monuments and rituals, but in the emotional fabric of everyday life.
If you’re in London this weekend, swing by @fourcornerse2 on Roman Road - we’re around until 6 pm today and open from 11 am to 6 pm tomorrow.
no longer a building
no longer a home
to mom, to dad, to me
to the vegetables in the fridge
not a home, not a fortress
no longer of four walls
(barely even fit to be a suitcase
or a backpack)
now—a big sooty
ashtray
for a god
who inhales the smoke
and lets fruit flies out of his mouth
‘Ashtray’ - Written by Lyuba Yakimchuk / Translation by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky
Kyiv, Ukraine, 2018.
Two older guys, and a young one.
He read twilight like a book,
rejoice, he repeated to himself, be joyful:
you’ll still sleep
in your bed today.
Today you’ll still wake up in a room
listening carefully to your body.
Today you’ll still be looking at the steel mill
standing idle all summer.
Home that is always with you like a sin.
Parents that will never grow older.
Today you’ll still see one of your people,
whomever you call your people.
‘A bridge used to be there, someone recalled’ - Written by Serhiy Zhadan and translated by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin
Kyiv, Ukraine, 2018.
The world is brimming with music and fire.
In the darkness flying fish and singing animals give voice.
In the meantime, almost everyone who got married then has died.
In the meantime, the parents of people my age have died.
In the meantime, most heroes have died.
The sky unfolds, as bitter as it is in Gogol’s novellas.
Echoing, the singing of people who gather the harvest.
Echoing, the music of those who cart stones from the field.
Echoing, it doesn’t stop.
‘So I’ll talk about it’ - Written by Serhiy Zhadan / Translation by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin
Kyiv, Ukraine, 2018.
For months, I’ve been thinking about this photo and the right words that go with it. Looking at these pictures last year was mostly a coping mechanism to escape the darkness that crawled into the Groundhog Day-esque plot of the pandemic.
The longer I looked at the photo though, the more doubts I had what it would come to stand for once uploaded. How would someone who hadn’t shared our table that night look at the picture? Does it, without further context, enforce a certain image of a region? Could it, within the wrong context, come to be seen as another presumptuous and pathetic romanticization from a position of privilege? How does one ensure the right context that does a situation or person justice in a place flawed as IG anyways?
Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has coined the term ‘the danger of a single story’. Our lives and the culture within are composed of many different, often overlapping stories and while they can be a source of great inspiration and identity, they do also make us impressionable, vulnerable. If we keep seeing only one side of the story, we first create, later reinforce stereotypes that are not necessarily untrue, but always incomplete.
At its worst, these stereotypes objectify based on a predetermined, oversimplified model that suppresses the lived experience of the individual. The result is a loss of agency through which the person can no longer influence others’ perception of their identity. A single image may not be able to tell the whole story of a place or person, but it has the power to nurture harmful, one-dimensional preconceptions.
In the end, this photo has become more than visual evidence of our host feeding livestock, more than the materialization of a cherished memory, it’s become a reminder to keep asking questions both about the photos we take and the images we see. To be aware that even as viewers, we're responsible for our gaze, and to not confuse seeing with knowing.
Somewhere in the Northeast of Brazil, 2014.
The wind was screaming at us when we reached the top of the dune. Not the soft whistle you know from home, not the loud cry of the seaside, but a violent roar that murders every other sound that dares to compete. It must have been around 6 in the morning, the sun rising at our backs. This is what we saw, deafened by the storm, our feet buried in the cold sand. We made our way to what was left of the lagoon that lay right beneath us and were greeted by nothingness. A silence so total, the contrast would overwhelm you at first. Not a single sound to be heard except the rush of blood in your ears which would slowly fade away after a while and allow you to enjoy the calm. Feels just like this weekend.
Somewhere in the Northeast, Brazil, 2014.
Facing what feels like the longest of all winters, I’ve been seeking comfort and occasional refuge from reality rummaging through old photos. Doing so inevitably brings back all kinds of emotions and faded memories but sometimes also translates into strange hypotheticals some of which keep your mind busy for far too long.
One that made my head spin was naming the one place I’d choose to see again if one trip was all there was. It’s a childish game but one that feels painfully real in times when curfews and lockdowns make us realize that the manifold freedoms we are so used to can and should not be considered a simple given. It also adds to the marks left by a certain place, which is why you’d find me right where the Atlantic and a sea of sand shake hands in the Northeast of Brazil.
Three days of getting up before sunrise to grind out mile after mile before the heat becomes unbearable, walking impossible. Taking a nap in the shadow of a wooden shack while waiting for a bit of mercy from the sun. Then continuing for another few hours until the horizon begins to glow in deep orange hues and you see green for the first time that day. Being thoroughly convinced that rice mixed with spaghetti and beans is the world’s greatest dinner. Falling into your hammock so wrecked that you’re already asleep before the rocking has turned into a gentle sway that carries you through the night - only to wake up early to do it all again.
Once we get to the other side of this pandemic, maybe you’re lucky and find yourself gazing at the same wall. If you do, ask your hosts to see the 2014 yearbook and check page 74.
Somewhere in the Northeast, Brazil, 2014.
