(I chose a picture of women to reveal their interdependence and
generational support)

1980er, Westdeutschland

Ein Bauernhaus im Dorf.
Eine Küche mit mehreren Generationen an Frauen.
Ein Holzschrank vor senffarbener Tapete.

Eine Frau, frisch geschieden, strahlend weißer Pulli.
Sie arbeitet eifrig an ihrer finanziellen Unabhängigkeit.
Sie kommt jeden Tag zu Besuch in ihr Elternhaus.
Sie kümmert sich um ihre krebskranke Mutter.
Der Mutter fallen die Haare aus.

Die Schwägerin eilt von rechts ins Bild.
„Nix ist mir zu viel.“
Die Pflege für die Schwiegermutter ist ihr nicht zu viel.
Aus Dankbarkeit für die Unterstützung mit ihren drei Kindern.
„Das hätte ich nie alleine geschafft“, sagt die Schwägerin.

Pflege braucht Zeit.
Die älteste Enkelin liegt mit dem Bauch auf dem Küchentisch.

This memory is a hand-me-down memory of my maternal grandmother from my mother:

"When I was at boarding school, we were coming out of church one day and one of the prefects said 'Look at that good looking woman across the street!' It was my mother, and I didnt know she was coming to visit me for the first time since I joined the school. I thought that was something special. She was wearing a red coat and sunglasses, she looked like a film star. That was when she told me that I had an elder sister called Judith, that Dad was her father too. She gave me her address so I could write to her."

That was life back then, the bitter and the sweet. It goes much the same now I suppose.

You were born in the Soviet Union in a remote northern city. Because you were always prone to colds, mother and grandmother swaddled you in hand-knitted warm blankets and later added extra layers of knitted vests and underpants under your clothes so no one could see there was something different but it was. As a schoolgirl, you did look different even when wearing a standard uniformt. Your apron was hand-sewn by your mother, warm underwear knitted by your maternal grandmother, and collars and cuffs were crocheted by your paternal grandmother. You would stitch them to your uniform dress twice a week, wash and steam them. Making the first crocheted bonnet for your doll at six, you took up knitting and sewing at twelve. Today you use all these skills and bodily memories in your art practice. You are me and I am thankful to these three women in my family to be me the way I am.

Fifteen years old and finally free from your own mother—at least for a moment—at the same school, I will seek refuge from you years later. High school years, the only moment I remember you always talking about with genuine joy, and I imagine it was the moment of true hope, the place in-between—after the "eldest daughter" archetype and before the "abused wife" identity—long-term traumas that took entirely over and didn't leave much space for YOU. I can only wonder what you were like at that time because the combination of unconscious survival strategies is the only version I have ever known of you. Still, I keep this image as a reminder that that is not ALL of you and that the essence can never be lost, only buried—temporarily. As we are selling the place I grew up in now and you are preparing for a big move, I can feel this abandoned self trembling beneath the surface, still a bit too shy, but nevertheless awaking to the possibility of living a life—for yourself—and not as a way of surviving active danger or in expectation of it. In a sense, your move forward is, in fact, a return—to the moment where you knew you have a choice. And I hope, we can finally meet.

This photo was taken in 1941 when you were 28 years old. You had your child out of wedlock in 1933 at the age of twenty. In the years following, as an unmarried single mother, you found employment as a calligrapher for the municipality, handwriting birth-, marriage-, and death certificates. In 1938, public employees were required to join the NSDAP in order to retain their jobs, and so you did. Born with a Slavic name, you forged your own birth certificate and adopted a German-sounding name as more and more members of the Slovenian community were taken away by the military. Starting with friends and family, you began reissuing fake birth certificates for the villagers. Concurrently, you ceased speaking your mother tongue. Thus, in this official photograph, you present yourself as a German woman.
In the 1960s, you attempted to legally reclaim your real name, but officials informed you that proceeding with your demand would result in prosecution for forgery. After suffering a stroke in 2012, you exclusively spoke Slovenian once again.