TIFA 2021 Book / Fine Art

Empty Forest

  • Prize
    Silver in Book/Fine Art
  • Photographer
    Nanouk Prins

In 1909 Emma Hauck was committed to a psychiatric hospital in Heidelberg (Germany). She was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. 11 years later she would pass away at the age of 42. Around that time a collection of letters was found in the archives of the Heidelberg hospital. All of these letters were written obsessively to her husband, begging him to collect her. Each letter is written with overlapping words. Some are so condensed as to be illegible. Some read “herzensschatzi komm’ (darling come) over and over; others only repeat the words ‘komm, komm, komm’ (come). The letters were never sent.