Photography: Sarah Sudhoffs „At the hour of death“

(Vimeo Direktsarah)

Sarah Sudhoff fotografiert blutgetränkte Stoffreste von den Orten, an denen Leute ermordet wurden, sie fotografiert die Asche von Eingeäscherten, ihre eigenen, grade rausoperierten Krebstumore und Leute, die an Neurofibromatosis leiden, deren Krebs an den unterschiedlichsten Stellen des Körpers wächst. Daneben stehen zwei Galerien voller Fotos von Party-Events von Studentenvereinigungen. Mit anderen Worten: Sie macht’s einem nicht einfach. Großartig!

Die obige Mini-Doku handelt von ihrer Serie „At the Hour of Our Death“, unbedingt aber ihr komplettes Portfolio durchklicken (stellenweise NSFW), denn es zwingt zum Nachdenken.

At the age of seventeen I lost a friend to suicide. While visiting his home the day after the tragic news I witnessed a clean up crew steam cleaning the carpet in his bedroom. All physical traces of the past 24 hours had vanished.

At the Hour of Our Death takes as its starting point Aries’s observation that “death’s invisibility enhances its terror”. These large-scale color photographs capture and fully illuminate swatches of bedding, carpet and upholstery marked with the signs of the passing of human life. The fabrics which are first removed by a trauma scene clean up crew, are relocated to a warehouse before being incinerated. It is in the warehouse that I photograph these fragments stained with bodily fluids. I tack each swatch to the wall and use the crew’s floodlights to illuminate the scene. The images are my attempt to slow the moments before and after death to a single frame, to allow what is generally invisible to become visible, and to engage with a process from which we have become disconnected.