Simon Gerlinger, Ephemeral Echoes

Between movement and standstill, the camera freezes a fraction of a second that would otherwise pass unnoticed. In a restless, digitally networked world, Simon Gerlinger’s photos in ‘Ephemeral Echoes’ invite us to pause and turn our attention to the quiet moments. The images do not provide any big answers, but rather raise questions: What was yesterday? What is today? And what could be tomorrow?

Gerlinger’s photographs spark something in us: They make the viewer fall into a deep sense of nostalgia. The people and places in his photos become projection surfaces for our own memories, which we encounter again and again in everyday life. The photographs are not just projections, but also documentation of a search—for what, actually? A search between Denmark, Berlin, Dortmund, New York and the south of France that spans the photographer’s last eight years: it doesn’t matter where the images are located in the real world. They show the photographer’s innermost self—his everyday perception. Between studying, finding one’s way in the world, falling in love and forgetting time for a moment. Photography not only as an exercise in seeing, but also as an act of preservation—perhaps as a brief distraction from the realisation that everything will one day come to an end.

The photos allow us to look back on the past, but—due to the nature of photography—they remain fragmentary and incomplete. The book ‘Ephemeral Echoes’ is therefore not only a deep insight into the life of Simon Gerlinger in his twenties, but also a place of remembrance for the viewer. It invites dialogue: With the pictures, but also with themselves.

Text by Felix Schmale