Scheiße, wo ist das Kind? 

In the work Scheiße, wo ist das Kind?, which translates from German into “Shit, where is the child?“ I deal with the fear that I have about losing my son in a public place. I seek out images of children and cut out one character to highlight the missing. The series spans from the comical but also a deep realistic fear. As a young child I was very disturbed by the 1993 killing in the UK of the two-year-old James Patrick Bulger who was abducted by two 10 year old boys. As a parent this of course is your biggest nightmare. 

In general in my collage work I seek out the juxtapositions of mostly only two images. I search for balloons and boats. Ghosts and the turned away gazes. I am also drawn to repetitions and the absurd. The theme of disappearance and fear, fear of the decay of the planet, fear of water or losing my son by the lake or a public place. Collage gives me the chance to work with the photographic image in a different way, it gives me a freedom to interact with the medium in a somewhat violent way. The act of cutting the image is a deconstruction of what can if one wants it to be a perfect image. In this way I would like to challenge the image and to a certain extent punish it. Images can be volatile and making the collage is yet another act of creating tension in a medium that I love and at the same time want to defy and take apart. Hannah Höch said: ”I have always tried to exploit the photograph. I use it like color, or as the poet uses the word.”



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hannah goldstein