Home – a house and its inhabitants

is about 46 persons who all live together in one big block in Darmstadt, Germany. It turns the inside of an house outward. Within one month I tried to get to know as many inhabitants as possible by ringing their bells. First I was mostly interested in what they dream of. Then I wanted to know what their goals were, how they would like to live, what they really loved to do, what they were proud of, what they liked to remember, what they thought was beautiful, what they liked about themselves, what was comforting to them, whom they were needing, where they belonged and how they were related to their neighbourhood.

The book is structured into different sections. It starts with personal portraits which are introducing the inhabitants to the reader. It continues with pictures of the inside of the house. The core of the book is the blue “book in a book” which contains fragments of interviews I was taking with the inhabitants. It is itself again divided into twenty different chapters: Pleasentness, goodwill, free time, work, proud, courage, memories, dreams, day dreams, imaginations,beauty, goals, admiration, desire, comfort, attachment, collections, nonsense, place, neighborhood)

I curated the interviews, split them up and arranged them regarding their content to create a storybook of a house. It turns out that the stories start to interact with one and another and if one reads through the book, one gets to know slowly the house as a whole. The book closes with a series of portraits of the inhabitants with closed eyes. I have printed the total amount of 851 pages in July 2011 on my inkjet printer at home.

“Was findest du noch schön außer Topmodels?” “Nix. Doch dich. Und meine Schwester auch.” “Was würdest du gerne einmal machen?” “Arbeiten.” “Wünschst du dir was?” “Einen Mops.” (Manon)

Access the work here