Gärtners Reise

They had spent their entire life together traveling around Europe in a mobile home. In summer 2008, Lothar Gärtner decided to venture on one last journey with his wife, Elke. Two years earlier, Elke has been diagnosed with dementia. Lothar wanted to care for her in their home for as long as possible, to accompany her on her way. Sibylle Fendt initially photographed Lothar and Elke at home before joining the couple on their last journey through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all the way to St. Petersburg. In discreet and yet intimate photographs, Fendt tells a love story of growing apart, finding each other again, and then disappearing. The photographs, though taken on the road, are not documents of the trip but symbols for a journey into unknown territory. In photography projects that are often developed over several years, Sibylle Fendt (b. 1974) likes to focus on people who are at a dead-end or a fork in the road of their life stories.