What remains.

Flight baggage.

Dagmar Gester

The exhibition by the Berlin-based photographer Dagmar Gester presents photo still lifes of things people took with them while fleeing their homes. Her works reduce the image to the essentials of the loss of homeland and identity, and she focuses on what remains: the flight baggage. The photographs depict personalized objects that allow for multiple associations, thereby inviting viewers to think in new ways and allow for connections to their own families’ stories.

The owners of the objects are not visually present, but are included in the image via writing. Because the objects are personalized, they have the ability to speak to the public. The motifs are presented in a frame set back from the prints: the loss of home creates a kind of frame around things, thereby lending them another metaphysical value.