DIE SENTIMENTALITÄT DER DINGE (2025)
A family home as an archive, in which stories, memories and temporalities overlap. Objects that have fallen out of sight, that have been forgotten, sorted out or left behind, that have changed owners and outlived them. They bear witness to lives lived and meanings that elude the immediate gaze.
In contrast to the capitalist logic of exploitation, which focuses on consumption, rapid wear and tear, and the speediest possible renewal of objects, the photographer - while tidying up her father's house - turns her gaze to the objects that have been left behind. They document the overlap of existences in space and time.
On the one hand, the images are intimate, as they offer insight into private and family spaces. On the other hand, on closer inspection, they provide information about specific socio-historical contexts/practices and tell a universal story, as it were: that of leaving things and traces behind as human beings.
Biography
Manon Diederich was born in Luxembourg in 1987. Trained as a social and cultural anthropologist in Cologne, she focused her research on gender relations and migration in the Global South. This, along with her current work as a political educator, influences her artistic perspectives. She is particularly interested in how sociopolitical phenomena are negotiated within intimate spaces.