We met in a country as alien to me as it was to her. InGreece. She is German and I French. The moments of intense friendship we have shared remain our common ground. It was there that our work together tentatively began, work which has since been guided by a single concern : reporting through images. When I meet Franziska Hoenisch a few years later in Paris she has become a documentary filmmaker. The reunion was special. We had practically lost touch, yet we remained as close as ever. She soon asked me to assist her on her next project, a study of the term « German Angst ».
Despite my ignorance of the German way of life, she was inviting me to travel to the heart of her nation to better observe my reactions. I am to go searching for experiences that are not my own,for a feeling of nationality that I can only attempt to experience, like an adopted child arriving at a new home. The time of our journey limits our experience and on ourwork.
The pictures presented here were taken over a ten-day journey in the winter of 2013. Listening to German, not a word of which I understand, the slightest gesture or blink are transformed into language. I concentrate, hanging on every word of everyone we meet. I feel as though we will find the definition of « German Angst ». I don’t know what there is I could say that the Germans don’t already know.
This intangible idea, these few images tracing our brief journey, fleeting moments, such are the the elements with which we speak of « German Angst », nothing more and nothing less.
