Stories from the Kitchen Table

I have created Stories from the Kitchen Table to preserve and honor a fading way of life in my childhood home.
Going home for me means travelling back to my family’s old farmhouse in a small village in Germany. It is the last remaining untouched house in the town. Going home evokes many different emotions. Most powerful is my need to document my childhood home, the people who passed through, and what, one day soon, will be left behind.
The very essence of home for me is gathering around the kitchen table to sit down to a meal with family and friends and share stories old and new.
In Stories from the Kitchen Table, some of my composites include old family photos combined with what I see today when I return home. I add flowers and fragmented images of fabric: these dish towels, tablecloths, napkins, and decorative wall hangings (dating back to 1799) were passed down from generation to generation.

Listen to:
KITCHEN TABLE STORIES Interview, SOUNDS LIKE AN EARFUL podcast

© Astrid Reischwitz 2014-2016.
All rights reserved.

”I selected SPINNECLUMP (SPIN CLUB) by Astrid Reischwitz for Best in Show for its strength in connecting historical and contemporary photographic practices to the history of female labor. (...) It is also a fine investigation of the limits of specific mediums, such as how the representation of textiles can relate to the material of textiles and the, largely female, labor that makes these fabrics possible.” (PLATINUM Open Juried Show, Cambridge Art Association; Juror Alise Upitis, MIT List Visual Art Center)