nicolameitzner
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How many floors does the building have in which you live? Berlin 2001


It is a well-known truth that whatever is most familiar is most easily overlooked. The places where we regularly spend time are too self-evident for us. In a nearby supermarket, things for everyday use are within reach on the shelves. Everyone knows his customary paths and the schedule of his bus line. A person doesn’t get lost on the way to the bus stop, even if he wouldn’t be able to recite the names of the streets he walks along. Hidden behind the most familiar views, however, lie many unanswered questions. In order to answer them, it would be necessary to respond to one’s own surroundings with the same attentiveness with which one encounters an unknown city. Nicola Meitzner asks herself these questions and also poses them to the viewer. In her photographic essay, she wanders through inconspicuous districts in Berlin. She goes to the most banal places, always being sure to preserve that distance with respect to the unknown which keeps one’s view from slipping back into the comfortably familiar. As the title of this photographic essay inquires, “How many floors does the building have in which you live?”
                                                                                                    Tomas Kadlcik

285 motives
B/W-copies, Artbook