FELDPOST, 1941

This drawing (“Field Mail, 1941”) is based on a photo of my grandfather, taken during World War II, when he was stationed in Norway as a soldier of the occupying Wehrmacht. Smoking his pipe while relaxing at the army barracks, he writes a letter, presumably to his loved ones back home. But apart from a few harmless anecdotes, his true experiences during the war will remain untold. When the drawing plotter executes the digital template, small errors accumulate and lead to inaccuracies, distorting the motif in an unpredictable manner — just like the sparse recollections of the long-since deceased grandfather, when they are passed on from one generation to the next. The piece is part of an ongoing project, based on old family photos and stories passed down to me by living and deceased relatives. Their personal narrative is set against the backdrop of history. For the sake of general validity, individuals are replaced by fictionalized versions of themselves. Symbols, historical figures and names are substituted with my own inventions. The focus is not so much on verifiable historical facts but on uncertainties and ambiguities, secrets and unproven statements.