Elzel / Müller: Land
in collaboration with Jana Müller /
c-prints,
3 each 72,5 × 87,5 cm,
28 each 34,5 × 42,5 cm,
framed, 2009
in collaboration with Jana Müller/
Background
The work Land is dedicated to a village, which is in a state of disintegration. One sees images of houses, barns, gardens, streets. At first glance, these photographs emanate a serene tranquility. Only on second glance do viewers notice that the idyll is deceptive: the houses are abandoned, some windows are bricked up, no one is to be seen. The photographs by Wiebke Elzel and Jana Müller of the work Land show houses of the village Heuersdorf in Saxony, which was systematically and completely demolished between 2006 – 2008 to make the underlying brown coal deposit usable. In these pictures, the ghostly moment inherent in every photograph, which consists in the fact that the object as it appears in the pictures can never be captured again, is heightened by the knowledge of the real disappearance of the village: the motifs shown actually no longer exist.