Consider Space

A project by Lilian Wunschik
University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf
with Prof. Anja Vormann

Consider Space signifies finding my space. It means facing the questions and thoughts that arise in my search for identity and home.

For people with families and ancestry from two, or even more countries, it is often an intimate, unsettled matter. In my photo book I work with the empty space of a document and fill it with fragments that have accumulated over time. Analogue photographs from Israel and Germany, digital collages made from magazines, books and maps. Memories, thoughts and traces are torn out of context, dismembered and reassembled into new images. I break out of the traditional photo book layout and consider the available space in context of defining myself. As a child of an Israeli mother and a German father I have always lived in Germany. From early on I realized that I didn’t quite belong. Something about me was supposedly different. Suddenly I was the Jewess and, for some, the personification of the State of Israel.

As a child and teenager, I didn’t know quite what this was. I was born here and have adapted to the culture but it’s not uncommon for people to ask me where I’m really from. For a while I even consciously hid my other roots for fear of rejection and prejudice. Today I am learning to reclaim my space so that no one else can dictate who I am and where I come from. Identity is something private, nobody is allowed to take it away from you. Considering my space is probably a lifelong process and that’s okay as long I work it out for myself.