Karlsruhe City
(One Can Surely Notice) (Still Life #15)
After living in Karlsruhe, Germany for 9 years, I encountered a rock identifying that the city stands on the 49th latitude. As for Vancouver, Canada also does, where I spent my 5 years of childhood.
Karlsruhe City (One Can Surely Notice) started while dealing with the coincidence and contingency as I was facing myself to the stone that indicates the latitude.
In order to maintain myself from the bond I found between my own roots and a land in Germany, I proceeded the project by bringing in a geographer's point of view on the city that will maintain a more distance between myself and the city.
Peter Hartleb is a geographer who is living in Karlsruhe for the past 60 years. He has studied fine arts and taught in an elementary school in the city. About 20 years ago he started his own website, which he reports the history and the current changes happening inside the city. Hartleb took me to a tour around specific places and I photographed buildings and gardens that you hardly recognize without any background information.
The 300 years old Karlsruhe has a district that is still developing. I reached out to a resident there and photographed his living environment while interviewing about his point of view on that district and the development of the city.