Selfie con un’aura
As we engage with works of art and architectural wonders in the post-Benjamin age of digital reproduction, one may notice our predilection for taking pictures that ostensibly include ourselves, the subjects of the aesthetic experience, within the frame. Whether static or moving, the selfie has become a concrete manifestation of how we perceive the outer world. If I can find infinite photos of the Fontana di Trevi on Google, then it may have become too trivial. So how do I restore an artwork’s vanished aura? One way might be to feature myself prominently in front of it, producing a photo unique in its content, thus showing that it was me, and me only, who was there in that given place and time.
Swimming forbidden
Staring pensive at the colossal Neva River, the people of St. Petersburg find ways to interact with the watercourse they're not allowed to swim in. A few impressions of Russia in the summer of 2016, my first time in the country.
Orlando, 2016
In the night of June 12, 2016, an armed man entered Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. At the time it became the deadliest mass shooting and terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. On the following Sunday, June 19, the Berliner LGBT community gathered at the Pariser Platz to remember the victims of the homophobic mass murder.
Wedding day, register's office
It’s a rainy Saturday morning in São Paulo, Brazil. At a notary’s office in the southwest of the city, dozens of couples hustle into the bureaucratic proceedings required to get married. A portrayal of warmth under the tungsten light of a municipal building.
Juracy makes lunch
An intimate portrait of my grandmother Juracy as she enacts her daily ritual of preparing lunch for the family. Though the house is not as full as it used to – over the past fifteen years many have moved out or passed away –, she refuses to give up her cooking routine. It is, after all, a way to cope with both the solitude of old age and the physical impairments of a stroke.
A toast to the Vaterland
A close look into the secretive world of a Berliner fraternity house, one of the last refuges of German nationalism. In this “safe space”, white German men celebrate their brotherliness, freedom of thought and obedience to the fatherland. At their beer-fuelled meetings, one may often hear the entire national anthem – including its forbidden stanzas.
