ZONES

Thoughts about the Philosophy of Henrieke I. Strecker
by Markus Wolter

How long does a look last?  Photography shows, among other things, momentary views of the photographer: what he or she gets to see, what he or she sees, or that which has been seen, what might have been seen, or what might have been intended to be seen. Henrieke Strecker's pictures indicate still something else: the suggestion of how long one might look, the capacity of seeing, what it takes to register what it is that is seen, the waiting for what will appear, until the picture may indicate what is to be seen on the image and with the image.

Exposure time, here, is less a mechanical process than it is the photograph reflecting rather than representing the image.  Thus, within the light of these "subjects" beheld, they remain integrated within themselves, or yet come into themselves - a face, a body, a landscape, emerge, while revealing that which makes them become possible.

They offer to themselves and also bestow time: the viewer encounters photographs that reveal themselves slowly or in the flash of the viewer's own perception; this is evident when the portrayed are people, especially when they find themselves in front of the pinhole opening of a camera obscura, for a period of time that affords them the choices of movement or utter stillness.

With her photography, Henrieke I. Strecker opens [releases] the possibility of movement and also time: zones become visible within a person, revealing what IS or what happens to them before the camera: their transitions, their dislimitations, the transparency within themselves.  This photography withdraws the observer's first view and the distinct identification of the image.

The one who would like to recognize here, and at first believes, that there is nothing to see, might possibly be just one: within his or her perception too fast; maybe still following a somewhat accepted digestion of everyday sensations of perception, in which the visual impression that is pragmatically interpreted within split seconds is ascertained.

Henrieke I. Strecker's photography avoids any attempt to deal with a picture impression in this manner, to bring it immediately into terms of a readied concept, to fix it.  Instead of recognizing what something IS, she trusts in the observer, that he or she is able to see, that something IS and occurs.

Sometimes one might call these images disturbing and dazzling; and at other times, obscure and darkly insistent: magic;  while they bestow their emergence the adequate time, Strecker's photography illuminates itself as a transparent medium of a phenomenon, whereupon here reveals, what will come to light, and by raising it into light, leaves a trace behind.

Translation
Henrieke I. Strecker

Edited by
Daniel Joseph Harris
Franz Carl Nicolay