T “A Path through the Bog” by Fischli/Weiss commemorates the Nazi violence and its camps, which have inscribed deeply into the landscape of the Emsland. Without a clear destination, the path leads the visitors through the forest and the drained bog behind the former Nazi forced-labor camp of Bathorn. Made of raw, untreated oak wood, the path has been exposed to the cyclical growth and decay of the natural cycle since its completion in 1999. In summer, it was time again to replace beams that had become too rotten and planks that had broken through. The old wood is always left to the natural cycle and, in the end, will be decomposing. I took a photograph of one of these fragments with a large format camera, in order to return it to the bog later. Only to know that this photograph, “plagued by the usual diseases of paper objects […]”, would also age, deteriorate and eventually disappear.

Silbergelatineabzug

35 × 28 cm

Edition

5