Markus Kaesler
Germany
Biography
Markus Kaesler engages conceptually with lensless photographic techniques.
At first glance, photography appears to be a technical medium for representing reality, with digital technology continuously offering increasingly sophisticated possibilities. In his work, however, Markus Kaesler takes the opposite path.
By completely renouncing modern technology, he reduces the medium to its essential elements: light and time, place and movement. In doing so, Kaesler’s works fundamentally reflect on the very conditions of their own creation.
Project
“mare nostrum” by Markus Kaesler is an experimental photographic installation that meditates on the human tragedies unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea. The project was developed during an artistic residency in Sète, France, and comprises 2 749 cyanotype prints, each produced using pinhole cameras that floated in the sea for the duration of a drowning incident, as statistically defined by the UNHCR data on migrant deaths. The images are developed with Mediterranean seawater, infusing the photographs with both the physical material of the sea and its symbolic resonance.
By merging analogue technique with poetic process, Kaesler’s work transforms statistical absence into tangible visual presence, inviting reflection on loss, memory and the invisible human cost of migration across borders.
