Jul 21, 2016 @ 11:02 CET

kusters_jul21_2016Dear Ivan,

I’ve been driving non-stop the last two days. The heat seemed to have made its way from you to me, we’ve had the two hottest days in a long time here in Europe. Storms predicted, and also, none came.

As you know, the journey I’m currently undertaking isn’t the happiest one. Time and again, I look for traces in stone, bronze, film, paint or words for reassurance that all will be fine after this machinery of annihilation 70 years ago. What about the other side of the spectrum, the serenity, the beauty, the positive? Hope? Have we cast a self fulfilling prophecy?

Am I looking too hard? Am I burdening with meaning?

The powerless angel, and the connection of past, present and future through Paul Klee’s painting. Unable to learn throughout and from history, piling mistake upon mistake, violence upon violence, destruction upon destruction. Ruin upon ruin.

Cataclysmic events happen at an ever greater speed and size. Maybe there should be a Moore’s law for humanity as well, noting that historical events halve their frequency and double their magnitude with each generation.

But for me it will always be the little things. Amidst all this calamity, I still see our capacity for humanity as our greatest power. In spite of, one may say, and that may well be so.

And you’re right, seeing cannot make us complicit by default. I was too harsh. We can’t fully understand. Luckily, once in awhile the veil is lifted, the fig leaf pushed aside to offer us a glimpse.

Pia just had woken up and didn’t have the slightest interest in having her picture taken. Day breaking, the grogginess of her sleep slowly, visibly leaving her, my flash fires by accident. An angel.

What would she have dreamt about.

/// #image_by_image is an ongoing conversation between photographers Ivan Sigal and Anton Kusters@ivansigal @antonkusters on Instagram ///