16 days in san francisco
click on image to continue

In the Winter of 2005 I went to San Francisco to visit my sister. She lives in the “The Mission District” - a predominantly Mexican neighborhood, where I stayed.
I hadn’t been back to my native San Francisco in over a year and a half and I felt a little culture-shocked, particularly because of the garbage. It was so dirty. I had grown accustomed to the hyper cleanliness of Germany! I was amazed at the kind and quantity of the garbage on the street; old books, plastic toys, and religious pamphlets in Spanish amongst other things, like hairnets or children’s drawings. As a result, I started to collect the garbage and ended up taking it back to Berlin with me.
16 Days in San Francisco is the result of working with the garbage. I limited myself to only using the garbage as both actual objects and/or ephemeral materials in the work, in addition to using the scraps as inspiration.

In October 2006, this work was presented in a solo show at Heimspiel gallery, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.