Elena Helfrecht offers a captivating photographic case study, examining the complexities of inherited trauma and postmemory. After her grandmother’s passing, she returns to her family estate in Bavaria, where the house and its archive become a stage for an allegorical play. In the process, she reconnects the fragmentary history of her female lineage. Helfrecht’s narrative goes beyond personal and national boundaries, creating a powerful gateway between the past and present. As the imagery figuratively searches for historical reoccurrences, it mirrors the artist’s own experience and behaviours across four generations and fosters a renewed sense of identity.
Featured at the end of the book is a short story by Camilla Grudova: ‘The House Surgeon’ revolves around a disturbing growth that silently develops under the floorboards of a family home, drawing further upon the themes of inherited trauma presented through Helfrecht’s photographs.
