Black Box

About three years ago, I inherited a black box containing hundreds of photos of my grandfather from World War II. My grandfather was a pilot in a transport squadron and flew missions on nearly all the contested Eastern Fronts, including Stalingrad. I would have loved to ask him how he experienced the cruel reality of that war, what he saw, what he did or did not do. But it never came to that—he passed away before I was born. In my work Black Box, I travel back in time and search through my grandfather's historical photographs for my own images that enter into a dialogue with the archival material. Black Box navigates between an intimate exploration of my family history and a societal reckoning, which is more important than ever against the backdrop of radical political trends.