Adults remember their own childhoods quite differently, ranging from romantic idealization to traumatic repression. Facts, wishful thinking, and fear projections, one's own views and the stories of others, kitsch and sobriety are almost impossible to separate. For those who have left childhood behind, it's difficult to comprehend the tremendous freedom of a child's imagination. Essentially, the only option is to accompany children as they create their own world through play—and, through observation, perhaps get a little closer to what once was. Photojournalist Dirk Gebhard did just that, traveling as a 'participant observer' in the classic sense: For over ten years, he romped around in parks and playgrounds with his own children, their friends, and playmates, observing with his camera the process of growing up in the small moments of childhood experience. Parks represent a kind of in-between space, not quite wild and not quite tamed, somewhat removed from the control of the official institutions of childhood socialization—parental home, daycare, school—yet protected. Children live and experience the park as a free space, a projection surface for their wishes and dreams—and those who can observe them for a while will find that this world opens up a little bit.
"... So beautiful - you have to use at this point the tapped word - and touching we have not seen this for a long time. Associating one thinks involuntarily to the emotional images of American Sally Mann's children sunken into their games."
Hans-Eberhardt Hess, Phototechnik International
The book was published by NIMBUS. Kunst und Bücher
80 pages, 50 photos in duotone, Hardcover with dust jacket.
Text: Nora und Stefan Koldehoff
Translation: Anne Posten
Design: Tamara Keller de Almeida Soliz
ISBN 978-3-907142-90-5
This picture essay consists of 4 chapters; you will find an additional navigation at the top and bottom of the website to browse through the individual chapters.