Carmen

About the project

Josefina-Marie Söllner and I decided that for Halloween 2022, we didn't just want to do a fun Halloween shoot for pretty pictures. This year we wanted to draw attention to a subject that had given us both a great deal to think about — a subject both of us had already had contact with. This time, rather than choosing a horror film as our inspiration, we engaged with a subject that is so horrific in reality that we would rather turn down the volume and close our eyes, the way one might during any scene of violence in a film. But that isn't possible. It isn't possible because it affects all of us. It isn't a film that can simply be switched off. It's a subject over which many people walk, quite literally, over dead bodies without giving it a second thought.

Every year, countless women die as a result of violence. In Austria alone, by the time this project began (October 2022), the number stood at 28.[1] Relationship problems are often fought out behind closed doors. All too often, the pressure to live up to societal role expectations leads to physical violence, psychological abuse, and ultimately, far too often, to a woman's death. According to police investigations, there is an attempted killing every day. Unfortunately, authorities usually only act once it's already too late.

For this reason, Josefina-Marie Söllner and I dedicated our 2022 photo project to drawing attention to this issue. In a series of four images titled "Carmen" — a nod to the opera of the same name by Georges Bizet — which we released over the course of four days, we tried to depict the different phases of this process metaphorically. Violence against women, in most cases, doesn't happen all at once. It is often a gradual process that, in many cases, the people around the victim don't fully register until it's already too late. Our image series embodies this process: from the first, sometimes subconsciously perceived psychological violence ("First Signs"), through the initial conscious realization of the situation ("Hopeless?"), a desperate cry for help ("Wringing Hands"), to the point when all help finally comes too late ("The Act").

From March 16 to May 6, 2023, two images from this project were exhibited at the Leica Gallery Salzburg as part of the exhibition "Der Moment macht das Bild – Part II" and offered for limited sale.

[1] Cf. Autonomous Austrian Women's Shelters: Suspected Femicides 2022, p. 9