Horror Vacui

Elianna Renner / Svenja Vierath

Digital photography, 2019
65 cm x 98 cm 12 images

Horror Vacui addresses gaps and blanks in the everyday life of a city. A performance unfolds in selected settings in a former freight yard on the railway sidings near Bremen’s central station. Homeless men, women, and children used to camp out on this wasteland, behind the rail sheds. Cars held together with duck tape served as housing. In spring 2019 the police evicted this community. The site is meanwhile deserted: the only sign of the former inhabitants is the relics they left behind.
The staged portraits were shot shortly after the eviction. They reflect the abandoned site and the vestiges of human life there. The artificiality of the poses is purposely provocative. Irritation stems from the fact that the new protagonists transform the original setting and stage it as a “white trash”environment.