Markus Kaesler
Mare Nostrum
Fábrica Cal Garbat
According to UNHCR figures, between 2019 and 2023 an average of 2,749 people died each year in the Mediterranean whilst attempting to reach Europe: the final escape, from which there is no return if it fails.
A study by the University of Heidelberg puts the average duration of drowning at three to five minutes. Based on these two figures, 2,749 photographs were taken using floating pinhole cameras, with an exposure time equivalent to that of drowning, and were subsequently printed as cyanotypes using water from the Mediterranean itself – the very sea that separates and that swallows.
The work was created during an artist’s residency in Sète, with the support of M28-Terres de culture, the City of Sète, the City of Heidelberg, the Maison de Heidelberg – German Cultural Centre in Montpellier and Volksbank Kurpfalz.
Markus Kaesler (Germany, 1977) works by radically reducing the photographic medium.
In contrast to digital technology and its quest for an ever more precise representation of reality, Kaesler dispenses with modern technology to return to the essentials: light and time, place and movement.
His work thus reflects on the very conditions of photographic creation.
He is a designated member of the DGPh, the DFA and the BBK. He has received the Jobo Large Format Award, the Vintage Grand Prix and the IPFA 25 Award, and was a finalist for the 2026 Aenne Biermann Prize for Contemporary Photography.
