Tell him it is all a transition
2011-14
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Sage ihm, es sei alles ein Übergang - Tell him it is all a transition is a quote from the first letter my German grandfather wrote in 1944 to his wife and his two young children on his way to the Eastern front during World War II. The sentence relates to his young son - my uncle - who had broken his leg and was admitted to hospital. However, I believe he had himself on his mind as well when he put the words to paper. He continued to write letters until late February 1945 when he became a Russian prisoner of war. He would never come home and he died near Moscow some time in early 1947. My grandmother continued writing to him for more than a year unaware of his death. The letters my grandfather wrote - shown in this work as origami boats - reflect a small escape from the catastrophe of war around him, which destroyed his and countless other lives at the time.

My images relate further to the story of the 1000 cranes. According to this story Sadako Sasaki, a girl from Hiroshima who suffered from leukemia after exposure to radiation fallout after the atomic bomb, attempted to fold 1000 origami cranes. A Japanese legend said that anyone who would succeed to fold that number of cranes would be granted a wish. It was her wish to become healthy again but she died in 1955.