2015

"Kosmos" is a photo series dealing with the achievements of Soviet space travel and its musealization. The pictures revolve around the relationship between the museum staff and the relics exhibited, the maintenance of the treasures and the staging of historical events.

Most of the elderly museum guards have experienced the cosmonautic activities of the USSR themselves and are now confronted with a conserved version of this history during their working hours. On the one hand, the sacred relics of space travel have moved much closer to their everyday lives - they become touchable. On the other hand, this biographic connection make the museum attendants almost seem to be part of the exhibition. Like the objects shown, they witnessed the historicized achievements and they have a biographical reference to the objects and events. As witnesses of a collapsed political system, they daily return to this remote, reconstructed world of USSR achievements to earn a living. This doubling reinforces the science-fiction-like character of the Cosmonaut Museum, albeit being a scientific-historical institution.