kin* is a personal documentary that examines the connection between the German and Jewish people more than 60 years after the fall of the Third Reich. It is a photographic investigation into the unique relationship between myself, the Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors and Germany as a people... Read more
kin* is a personal documentary that examines the connection between the German and Jewish people more than 60 years after the fall of the Third Reich. It is a photographic investigation into the unique relationship between myself, the Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors and Germany as a people and culture. The photographs focus on German youth of my own generation, the grandchildren of World War II who comprise an ever-changing idea of what Germany is in the 21st century.
In 2008 I traveled throughout Germany for two months, exploring the landscape and spending time with young people in their twenties, who are coming-of-age as part of the third generation on the other side of a shared history. The photographs I created during this time center on the ways in which psychological aftereffects and trauma are passed down through generations by way of family, national identity, religion and notions of responsibility. I am interested in the ways in which new generations function and relate to this shared past and how it serves as an impetus for how to operate in the present.
I am intrigued by the concept of opposing groups uniting generations after a trauma. Throughout history there are countless examples of resentment bleeding from one generation to the next. Oppressed people bear children who grow up angry or scared because those are the beliefs held by their parents. kin* is my journey back to a country that scarred my family. I am reaching out to people of my own generation in an attempt to grasp their situation and the manner in which they relate to their past and future. The project is an inquiry into the potential of future generations from opposite sides of a conflict to come together rather than be held apart by the weight of history.
