Sehnsucht

Limited zine series – essay, photography and poetry.

‘Sehnsucht’ is a German word that cannot be accurately translated – yet it refers to a permanently unfulfilled human longing to find home.

Over the years, I have written about and photographed the different places where I have lived. Combining poetry and photography in an edited zine, this project is an exploration of urban space as a relational framework where a series of cultural and affective currents take place between different actors, thus configuring the identity of a place as well as processes of collective memory. The underlying idea behind ‘sehnsucht’ is an open-ended reflection on the constructed nature of identity, which does nonetheless not deduct from its effects on our psyches, spaces and bodies. Conversely, it is an exercise in self-writing, of writing oneself through photography and language itself.

Experimenting with lived memories in different languages, the work explores the power of translation (and lack thereof) as a tool that, far from being neutral, is capable of shaping emotion and experience.

 

This limited edition of zines was produced in the context of FANFUNZINE, a fair for self-publishing in architecture which took place in Madrid in 2015.