Sometimes the sky above us is open.
by Sarah Grethe
portfolio special mention call 'URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE AWARDS 2021', 2021
Category: Memories and Traditions
The series seeks an examination on the concept of home. I accompany my mother's return to the place where she grew up: a farm in southern Germany.
In the confrontation of an idealizing view and the distance from the actual place today, tensions between familiarity and strangeness, constancy and change become visible. They clarify how home and origin can both carry and constrict.
The title refers to a quote from a letter my mother sent to her parents in 1999. When she found it again while doing research for the project, she couldn't believe what she had written then.
How does home change for a person when she hasn't lived there for a long time? And when she returns?