My images, they became a mirror to my feelings and fears

Growing up in a western democracy i took that state for granted.

I took Democracy for something given and normal. Recently, everything began to shake. Right wing extremism crawling upwards from somewhere, showing its ugly face in my own country and all over Europe, all over the world.

News showing pictures of refugees struggling to survive in the mediterranean sea. Climate change suddenly a real threatening problem and now Corona. ( when i shot the pictures it was the beginning of March 2020, right before Europe was facing the Pandemia in its full dimension).

I felt everything was trembling around me , the security vanishing in days . Days could become hours , maybe.

So I went to a place where people have experienced exactly this:

Their world, their lives, everything they knew changed within 24 hours. Tschernobyl.

They left their lives behind in the true sense of the word: Left their book open, beds unmade, letters unfinished.

Didn't look back , maybe too scared to do so. I wanted to see, to get hold of what was left behind:

Their lives, and even more the feeling of security, a state they took for granted.