between the skin and sea — Katrin Koenning. Published by Chose Commune.
Old Saxon was a language that developed in the 11th century; it is the language of Katrin Koenning's and my Saxon forefathers, just 200 km apart. Over time, the language evolved, and borders were created. Today, this makes Katrin Koenning German and me Dutch.
In her mid-twenties, Katrin migrated from Germany to Australia. For me, it is hard to imagine how this major change between such different soils must feel. Or perhaps I can, by experiencing a latent longing present in many of her images—a longing for arrival, for shelter, for peace. But what also radiates from her work is her ability to passionately surrender to the things and places she encounters. In her new book ‘Between the Skin and Sea’, these characteristics of her visual voice are perhaps more brimming than ever before. Photographed between 2020–2023 in an area of just a few square kilometers, amidst the energy of beginnings and endings in all aspects of life, Koenning lets you share in her sensitive antennas tuned to this world.
You can’t close the book without reading Koenning's thank-you note, where she pays her deep respect to the first people of ‘Australia’: the forefathers and foremothers of unceded Lands and Waters. …Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
Awoiska van der Molen is based in Amsterdam. She is known for her monumental black-and-white analogue images that represent her experience of the primordial and psychological space in the world she photographs. Her monographs The Humanness of Our Lonely Selves (2024), Sequester (2014), Blanco (2017), and The Living Mountain (2020) are designed and published by Hans Gremmen, Fw:Books.
awoiska.nl
Instagram: @awoiska_vandermolen