Genius Loci

In the beginning of 2012, photographer Thomas Kellner received a surprising email from Yekaterinburg in the Russian Urals, to form a project with an exhibition and a book to mark the city’s anniversary in 2013, almost 300 years since Yekaterinburg was founded by Georg Wilhem Henning, a Siegen Citizen. This was barely known, and Thomas Kellner started his research. During his years of study Thomas Kellner began to work with pinhole cameras in the subject of art which built the basis for his approach that he continues to use to this day. In his early works, experimenting with material, photographic methods and contents was crucial. It included building pinhole cameras himself in order to adapt them to the purpose he was using them for. The results reflect a diversity of styles and subjects. They range from multiple perspectives within one photograph over documentary to photograms. In this period, he always printed full editions so that today there is a large number of a vintage prints available for later exhibitions.

At the end of the nineties Thomas focused on the analogue camera and 35mm film. He developed a visual language and method that deconstructs and constructs objects at the same time. Now, he is working in a worldwide unique style of contact sheets, photographing the object in numerous singular shots until the object is visible in its entirety again. The film- material Thomas uses is transparent for the recipient as well because the single shots are assembled together as negatives. Therefore perforation, codification and numbers of the film-material are part of the positive.

Text in English, German and Russian.