Ubermorgen Schnee / Sonja Trabandt
ÜBERMORGEN SCHNEE, The day after tomorrow Snow * by Sonja Trabandt is a story of two women, exploring the tangibility of cancer and documenting the pain and challenges of treatment, but also focusing on their bravery in the face of mortality.
On the day A., the artist close friend, was diagnosed with a large B-cell lymphoma, she decided to stand by her side. Despite the fact that access to her subject has been unlimited, Trabandt constantly struggled with her ever-changing roles as photographer, friend and caretaker. Learning this balance has helped to transmit emotions through the sometimes staged images, witnessing her grow both as a photographer and as a storyteller.
The photobook is a shockingly raw, yet strikingly beautiful, photo series that shows two sides of cancer we're not used to seeing: the reality of the ill person and her closest friend, disarmed spectator of it all. The whole project is a declaration of love to A., who has shared with the artist the darkest and most vulnerable time of her life, allowing the camera to tell both their stories in a silent visual dialogue between Trabandt and A., anonymous presence, yet central.
The story is visually split into two chapters. In the first one, the photographs chronicles A.’s time in treatment with the raw intimacy of personal perspective.The photographs range from medicines, hair wigs, to A’s unconventional portraits, gifts from her friends and family and her strapped down in a bed while receiving chemo treatment showing the emotional toll of radiation. A. is there, through the pages, not much with the depiction of her body but through her objects.
On a personal level, with compassion and respect, Trabandt aspire to capture the full range of both their experiences – A., ill and in need of care and herself, and the artist, who’s looking at the calvary of her friend while still using a documentary approach mixed with staged images, maintaining a certain level of detachment. This aspect is mirrored in the first part of the book, from the daily banter they shared as best friends to their shifting dynamic as patient and caregiver. It’s very easy to overlook at the images and see only cancer, but saying that would be like looking at the ocean and only seeing water. It’s certainly not only about the physical and emotional scars the illness carries itself.
The second chapter invites us to re-enter the natural world and embrace our connection to it. By folding and unfolding the multiple layers of dreamy images, the reader is transported into A. and Trabandt world—a tactile process of reconnecting with nature and its spiritual planes and possibilities. As we lose ourselves to a blurry encounter with natural elements, we absorb the photographer’s own relationship to nature, not only bringing us closer to the landscapes that she is photographing, but closer to each other as viewer, photographer, and ultimately human beings.
By photographing her friend Trabandt has been able to create an archive of her story and capture her essence, remembering the tangible of the illness through photographs and, more important the intangible moments. It is a sense of both the material and the immaterial she is trying to solidify, describing the love for something that has lost its form. She found a method for doing so in the performed and embellished photographic object, sharing spaces and feelings while avoiding the classic form of reportage, creating a universal story while letting space for the viewer to reflect upon it. There is a dilemma in making personal, autobiographical work using photography: one which involves choosing between mining the deeply felt lived experience for personal growth or exploring it to give away and share with an unknown audience. The value is in using this response to personal experience as a means of articulating what can go on to function beyond one person's experience. Trabandt is purposely trying to amplify the inadequacy of the photograph in filling the void A. was feeling at the time.
There is an inherent beauty in humanity. A beauty that transcends the glossy, mass-produced images force-fed by popular media. We recognize it instantly: the human condition. Hope, despair, love, loss, courage, fear. The project has become their shared history.