Laster...

The strange adventures of a pebble

The strange adventures of a pebble is a project that explores identity, migration, and memory through the lens of my grandfather’s displacement from Silesia following World War II. Using drawing, text and archival research, I trace the landscapes of the past – both real and imagined – and examine how place, history and material objects, particularly stones, shape our sense of belonging.

As I move through the landscapes of my own life, from childhood memories to present­day travels, I seek to understand how geography and personal narrative are connected. I collect stones along my paths through Germany, Norway, Italy and Poland, I make studies of how shadow falls on mountain flanks and work on super­size panoramas. I try to think like a mountain. Thinking like a mountain symbolises the wish to take an alternative point of view: To explore how landscape, stones and mountains can illuminate our understanding of identity and humanness.

Ena Johanna Rathgeb

The strange adventures of a pebble , 2025