Artist Statement
Born and raised in a rural part of central Germany, which is known as the origin of bratwurst, amid vast meadows and hilly forests I had developed an innate hunger for world at an early age. During my late teens and early twenties I have been moving back and forth between Germany and the United States for school and college. I am holding a bachelors degree in literature and political science with strong focus on the United States from Freie Universität, Berlin, and have studied abroad at the University of California, Davis, where I also dove into fine art photography. Currently, I am pursuing a master’s degree of comparative Literature at Freie Universität. There I am particularly interested in picture theory, the relationship of picture and text, and am therefore researching the medium of the postcard.
During my stints in the US I have been confronted with various perspectives on national identity. Food has been a factor of integration and cultural exchange, a bridge between my native culture up and the culture in which I was trying to integrate myself. Naturally, this lead to quite a few funny moments when I realized that there a different interpretations of essentially the same thing, like bratwurst seasoned with cinnamon and bribed with pineapple in the US or the seasoned with cumin, what I would consider the traditional way.
Many of these experience I have made on the cusp of adulthood which evokes themes of self-exploration, sexuality, intercultural identity. My submission serves as a simulacrum of these and various other tropes of food.
Though, I would like to leave the table open to your personal ingestion of my photograph.
Janek Kindel –
Born on December 17, 1997 in Jena, Germany, Janek is a photographer based in Berlin, Germany. He holds a bachelor’s degree in North American literature and political science and is currently pursuing a master’s degree of Comparative Literature at the Peter Szondi Institute of Freie Universität, Berlin. His piece Transatlantic Sausage poses as a simulacrum in his intercultural experience as an exchange student at the University of California, Davis, marked by more commonalities than differences. In his current project Oblique City, he is exploring epistolaries and their latencies between him and urban environments in the form of postcards. The postcard, as a medium, connects both image and text in a dynamic manner for it must be flipped back and forth to be read.
Website: janekkindel.com
Instagram: @bananajanek
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