Guenther, Friederike, Hilde, Franz and Paul are deceased, but they revived as diamonds materialized of their cremation ashes. This is a project telling 5 stories of 5 people and their beloved bereaved. It contains images taken from the private archives of the bereaved and photographs by Reiner Riedler.
In many ways, a photograph and a diamond are closer than one may think. This relationship, this complicity of commemoration, is what makes the images in this book so moving, so alarming, so touching. This book accompanies this metamorphosis of commemoration. We see photos from the past, we see memories that have become diamonds, and we see the relationships of the bereaved to this crystalline form of commemoration. We see the eternal next to the ephemeral. We see the laborious battle against the memory-crushing work of everyday life, the quiet triumphs when transience is fooled, but also the idiosyncratic stasis of a life that perhaps depends a little too much on yesterday. We see the work of memory in practice - and this book is itself a part of this work. More even. Perhaps this book is the resting place that these diamonds need. After all, you can close it. And it is ephemeral. The pages will turn yellow, they will wither, this book will also become part of the great cycle of nature. With this book, the memories that have become immortal in the diamonds will also pass. At least symbolically. Only the memory diamonds themselves will continue to exist forever.
MEMORY DIAMONDS, a photobook by Reiner Riedler
128 pages, 17,5 x 22 cm, 66 photographs, with selection of 14 handpasted photographs by the artist Hardboard cover with special glittering „Magic Linen“, Limited Edition of 300.
Texts by Kurt Riha, German with English translation by Namina Nam Published by REFLEKTOR / Vienna
ISBN Nr. 978-3-200-05070-9
Preis: 34,90 € plus Porto