2017, digitalprint, Fine Art, Ilford Studio Satin, 250gr, 88x30cm, color, on aluminium

Platforms are like stages where we are spectators and actors at the same time. Through their drabness they are visually appealing. A lack of communication and social isolation are tangible. The shrill colors of the subway stations in Cologne contrast this drabness. Subway stations are places of transit or non-places, like French anthropologist Marc Augé calls them; places of loneliness, of physical presence and mental absence. The photo series absence deals with these non-places and its ruling social isolation.

People and station were photographed separately and put together afterwards through a composing. Like this, the persons seem even more engrossed and isolated. The panorama view supports the impression of an endless platform, an endless coexistence of humans. The distance between the benches is expanded, but the center stays always empty. None of the figures is being favored in space, all are the same.  Architecture and social patterns are synchronized. All figures look past the camera. Spectators are not able to built eye contact with the subjects, distance is preserved. We see the green tiles of the station; we look on the stage of social isolation and are isolated as well.