Elena Helfrecht

Plexus is an exploration of a suppressed and unfamiliar past, entangled with numerous layers of personal and collective history, trauma, memory and silence. In this work, I investigate the complex routes of my ancestors using my family house and archive. The fabrication of accounts through objects and spaces reveals bridges between the now and then.

Observing the past through the inheritance of previous generations’ trauma and memory, decades later, frames an individual and national narrative of German history. This photographic case study provides a familiar terrain to explore the influence of the family in the discovery of psychological and cultural processes within history.

The creation of dream-like environments and symbols interlinks all that is remembered and simultaneously forgotten. Constructing a home and a sense of identity, spanning across four generations, provides grounds for a detailed investigation of post-memory, mental health, war and history.