About This Project

Franziska Ostermann

All your faces are mine // the boat trip

«Abandoned photographs change hands. Old pictures of unknown people end up in my possession. The once protected memory loses its private context to a stranger. I appropriate the faces of the people pictured. I manipulate and invent them. In a blur I let them disappear, as they disappear in memory, I burn out faces and dye clothes white, I exchange how the pictures were exchanged when I bought them. I deny the depicted characters their individuality, the formerly radiant protagonists of told stories become anyone. I open them up to the identification of many, to collective memories. A woman in a white dress in front of a grey bush, a boat trip together on the sea, happy faces looking out the windows of holiday home: all of these are potential memories of many. The images cannot be poured into the simplicity of the preceding sentences. At the same time, the rudimentary descriptions evoke relatives of the images they capture. The pictures of this work are accompanied by texts. The texts also appear in frames on prints, as do the pictures. I approach the pictures with words. This opens up yet another perspective that not only reflects what is depicted but also the medium that shows it, photography. The written observations themselves become pictures. The boundaries between the two media become blurred.»

Instagram