ABOUT

A year full of change, existential questions, and fears: a child's first year, a father's first year. Mario Wezel photographs things he encounters in everyday life in his new role as a father: sparks from a campfire, jellyfish, a diaper on a clothesline. The images symbolically speak of a changed view of the world, of a softness and deceleration, of memories of his own childhood. But also of painful reminiscences about lost freedom, of changed relationships with partners and parents, and the search for a home. Situations and places are charged with meaning by placing them in the context of the beginning of life.

Fourteen texts from the same period, selected excerpts from the author's diary, are included in the book. The book also connects to the subsequent work, "A Domestic Kingdom (On 86 Square Meters)," a nine-part Super 8 video installation. In it, Wezel dissects the everyday life of a small family during the first year of their second child's life: a detailed examination of life within their own four walls, contrasted with views from the window, where the world continues its usual course. Short sequences from this recurring double-page spread throughout the book.