Liminal spaces are defined as the uncertain transition between where you’ve been & where you’re going physically, emotionally, or metaphorically. Airports are literal examples of this phenomena, as they are gateways for change; Deeply air-conditioned, sterile lit & over-designed uncomfortable, they always accomodate the same interchangeable characters. Surprisingly, despite the discomforting hasty lifestyle, the handsome burnt-out business traveller in his grey pinstripe suit is the one who is portrait by mass media as the most desired winner-type in globalised society.

Therefore, equipped with a camera, we semi-legal gained access to the taxiway fence, to capture this sexy-cold, liminal-chromatic discomfort in an unnatural, in-air magazine-style manner.

Olympus OMII, Ilford–100, Ilfosol-3

When Elias asked me if I wanted to travel to Trentino, Italy, to see him and photograph his work at the exhibition at Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea, I already suspected that it would be bizarre but I couldn’t pass up this offer.

After a successful and long vernissage, we drove up a mountain somewhere between Bolzano and East Tyrol in his old rattling Golf II to stage him in his performance suit. We were complete strangers, disturbing local peace, scaring poor hikers – Elias in his white goat fur, covered by a wooden carved mask giving this alpine shamanic look, and me, the voyeur in his trench coat lying in the snow taking pictures. After this freezing photoshoot we warmed up by a gorgeous south tyrolean Bretteljausn.

Olympus OMII, Ilford – 400, Ilfosol-3

Apart from a few gated communities in the big cities, there were no air-conditioned department stores, paved roads, assured mobile signals, guarantee on reliable running electricity, let alone protection from state corruption and bribery when my friends and I travelled East Africa. And yet, clearly standing out from the local crowd, we were warmly welcomed, met with interest and bid farewell with a warm heart even by the socially most vulnerable.

A wonderful, enlightening and life-changing experience – Only now I painstakingly realised that we few from wealthy industrialised countries are actually the blind, priviledged and reality-averse outsiders in a world with far lower, but humanly at eye level meeting standards.

Olympus Ecru, Ilford – 400, Ilfosol-3