SO THAT TODAY I MIGHT FEEL WHAT’S MINE
2026, screen print, inkjet print, textile, installation as a whole about 300 cx 650 cm

Photo exhibition view: Johannes Ocker
Text: Lilli Roser

There are some feelings we carry within us without knowing where they come from: shame for no reason, fear without a trigger, dreams of things we’ve never experienced. These feelings and memories don’t seem to belong solely to us. It’s as if they’re inherited and passed down like eye color, like gestures, like the way we see the world.

Julia Scholl grows up in a house with her grandmother. Her grandmother reads to her and plays games, is always there, and loves her unconditionally. She tells stories of growing up by the Black Sea, of harvesting watermelons, and of homemade yogurt. The granddaughter listens and thinks she knows these stories and this person; she knows exactly what Bessarabia looked like. It is only many years later, after her grandmother has died, that the gaps become apparent. Years about which nothing was told, questions one could have asked if one had known what to ask.

It is only with loss that we begin to search. We seek the stories between the images, what was left unsaid. But we also seek to better understand ourselves and to learn how to cope with the feeling of never receiving those answers. What remains are the images. Photographs of the grandmother, the father, and Julia’s own shots. They overlap until no one can tell whose gaze belongs to whom.

AM ZWEITEN TAG DAS FIRMAMENT (ON THE SECOND DAY, THE FIRMAMENT)
2024, screen print, 113 x 200 cm, publication, 22,5 x 17 cm, design: Christoph Reinicke

Text: Daniel M. Feige

At first glance, the suspended screen print appears to be a (blurred) image from the repertoire of pictures made with telescopes or similar instruments. In fact, however, it is the earliest photograph of the ultrasound image of a family member who died at an early age. With this knowledge, the picture is transformed: Not only does its inconsistency become the center of attention [...], but the bridging between the largest (cosmological) and something very small (that below the mesocosm, life progresses into it) becomes tangible. [...] The book starts with ultrasound photos and ends with them, intermittently, almost like a filmic cut, enlarged and alienated scenes from the family photo album can be seen, which make the participation of the lost person in the cosmos of the family perceptible. One of the astonishing effects that emerge when leafing through it is that the second series of ultrasound images are no longer just ultrasound images against the background of this knowledge; they change their meaning.

UNTITLED
2026, dyptich, screen print, 37,2 x 54,5 cm

Text: Lilli Roser

The cave becomes a metaphor for inner states – for all the feelings, memories, and losses that remain hidden. Even for everything we wish to conceal or ignore. Stalactites form over vast periods of time, almost imperceptibly, and yet they continue to grow ceaselessly. For even what lingers in the darkness for a long time does not disappear.

HOW LONG BEFORE YOU FORGET ABOUT ME
2023, screen print on stone, different sizes, from 24,5 x 41 x 26 cm to 13,5 x 58 x 56 cm, 6 stones

Photo exhibition view: Johannes Ocker
Text: Luise Nübling
Translation: Pia Pospischil

Memories are usually inscribed unconsciously in our memory. They are filled with gaps and emotions that are as enriching as they are burdensome. Julia Scholl thematizes in this work the memory as a desire to hold on to something by printing personal memory photos on stone. Through the screen printing process, voids have been created that function as a disturbance and make the fragility of memory visible. It is emphasized that it is impossible to permanently and completely capture a moment, each photograph is merely a detail and is only a reproduction of an experience. Nevertheless, through the materiality of stone, photography is attributed a permanence that at least seemingly preserves memory forever and holds emotional value in its weight.

SAG NOCHAL, SCHLAF GUT, ZU MIR (TELL ME, SLEEP WELL, ONCE MORE)
2023, screen print on paper made from pillowcases sourced from the family archives

Text: Lilli Roser

The clouds in TELL ME, SLEEP WELL, ONCE MORE appear heavy and restless. Instead of a luminous vision of the hereafter, they depict a stormy, churning twilight. The image is a silkscreen print of a photograph on paper created from the artist’s grandmother’s pillowcases. The fabrics were mixed and reshaped from the bed linens she inherited. The pattern of the material stands out clearly. This everyday yet intimate material evokes a place of tranquility, of dreams, of thoughts before falling asleep, and of final words.