PFAND
A project about the significance of bottles and collections.
I got intrigued by the Pfandsammler*innen, deposit collectors, during my
internship in Berlin.
They roam around, looking for bottles that are waiting
underneath trash cans to become part of a collection.
People leave their
bottles behind for the collectors to find them. Intrigued by this social
system which is
overshadowed by melancholy, I spent a month in Berlin,
observing the bottle circulation and talking to these collectors.
Their
collection is not built to be kept, they exchange it for money at the end of
the day. The collection starts over
again every day.
The bottles are never presented and looked at as a collection,
and therefore, do not get the appreciation they deserve.
I used my role as an
illustrator and bottle enthusiast to visualise this invisible collection of
bottles, with the goal
to create appreciation for these collectors, their
bottles and their collection. Stepping into the role of an illustrating
bottle
collector resulted in an ever growing collection of drawings, lithographs and ceramic
bottles.