Sternenstaub is a photobook project that investigates the search for meaning in life by combining staged studio portraits of young adults (who belong to the so-called Peter Pan Generation) and abstract imagery of rays of light. Both types of images oscillate between the twin poles of naturalness and artificiality. The images are not stable photographic entities, and their combination in a book further complicates the interpretation of their meaning.

This complication correlates with the overarching theme of the book project: finding an expression for the search of meaning in life. This is a photographic quest for something that is deeply individual and can at times be confusing – leaving room for individual perspectives by the viewers of the book. The young people in the portraits are looking for something in the dark, in an attempt to express that which actually exists within themselves – alternating through anticipation, disappointment, doubt, religious belief, satisfaction and bliss. Depending on the interpretation, the rays of light can be seen as either a form of reflection of these emotions or a trigger for them.


Sternenstaub: artist book, 48 pages, lenticular print on hardcover, including the short story Between Here and There by Jason Gersch, edition: 9+IV