Thursday, December 8, 2016

Postcards from here--for Esther Hiepler



After 4 photos by Esther Hiepler
Jennifer K Dick

POSTCARD 1

I come up close like the photographer and gaze down—a duck in the water and a man leaning on the helm of his barge. He is in a grey work suit, black shoes worn soft, red hoody bunched at the back of his neck emerging from coveralls. He looks forward, over murky milk-green water, beyond our view. I feel him sigh within my ribcage. Inhale, exhale brine-infused air. Our contented ease transports nothing but the remains of the self, years lighter in this second half of our century. Merchandise already delivered, responsibilities deposited elsewhere, vacant hull buoyant as he, the duck, float, flotsam and jetsam: debris in this vast world of cargo carrying on. A shadow, faint, almost indiscernible, shifts in tint (green to blue) greying off to the port side.


Esther Hiepler’s photos are on display at The Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, until 8 January 2017.
For more, see Esther Hiepler's home site: http://www.estherhiepler.ch/ or  http://www.estherhiepler.ch/index.php?lang=en&