Akelei Sell

The digital and analogue archives of Akelei Sell's travel pictures - a mountain of memories from which her gaze wanders back to distant countries. Even after decades, she says, they are 'still in my mind', especially those from China, where she lived for a while in cities by the water between 2001 and 2008. Shanghai on the Huangpu River with its endlessly moving ships from all over the world, Nanjing on the wide, glittering Yang tse Kiang, Shaoxing with its canals reminiscent of Venice and Hangzhou on the Western lake Xi Hu, which in China is called paradise on earth. Colourful and buzzing life on the banks and in the heart of the cities. At the beginning of her trips to China, she mainly took photos in black and white, later in colour. For the exhibition on the occasion of her milestone birthday she was going back to the b/w photos, as colours fade in memory and the essentials remain.

 The "Echo from China" tableaux, paintings on acrylic glass, created between 2005 and 2012, are echos from a world of signs.