Anker (2003 - 2008)

C-Prints, Dimensions variable

As a child I owned a book that I loved very much: Meyers’ Children‘s Lexicon. It was given to me by my parents and it contained over 1,300 keywords in alphabetical order. Every word was illustrated with a carefully designed drawing and a small text tried to use the word in context and tell a little story. The editors of the Lexicon had agreed on a set of definitions that they considered supplied a basic knowledge about the world for children between the ages of six and ten. It dealt with important issues of life - family, the first day at school, different forms of weather, transportation, games, daily routines and so forth – and it pointed out the connections between them.
 
I remember my favourite two images being “Good-bye” and “Adventure”. The first one showed a small girl with black hair hugging her father, while a boat was waiting in the background to separate the two. The other one showed two boys at the entrance of a deep and dark cave, unsure of whether to start their adventure or not. Althoug I didn‘t quite understand why precisely these images and their related stories touched me more than others, I felt that they had a place in the book and were embedded in a whole context of meaning.