Volker Gerling captures the magic of the fleeting, almost invisible. His snapshots are poetic blinks of exactly 12 seconds. Gerling has travelled 5500 kilometres through Germany, Austria and Switzerland and uses his camera to document gems of wondrously inconspicuous encounters in the form of photographic flip-books.
The play "Bilder lernen laufen, indem man sie herumträgt" (Pictures learn to walk by carrying them around) has been invited to theatre festivals in 30 countries on four continents and received the prestigious Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival.
In addition to Gerling's latest flip-books, you will see the highlights of his earlier travels.
"Bilder lernen laufen, indem man sie herumträgt" (Pictures learn to walk by carrying them around) is Gerling's motto, and he has succeeded in doing no less than developing a new form of theatre. It is not the flip-books per se that captivate the viewer, but the stories behind them. Gerling is a brilliant storyteller." Theater der Zeit
"In just a few seconds you come close to an unimagined depth. These moments between pose and unconsciousness are so weepingly beautiful that you wish it would never end." Sächsische Zeitung
"Art couldn't be quieter, simpler or more beautiful." Tagesanzeiger Zürich
Volker Gerling, born in Hilden in 1968, is Germany's only professional flip-book cinematographer. He studied at the Konrad Wolf Film Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg and has been working at the interface between photography and film since 1998. He regularly goes on tour with his flip-books, without money, financed by what the viewers of his works honour him with. With his stage programme "Bilder lernen laufen, indem man sie herumträgt" (Pictures learn to walk by carrying them around), which is based on the experiences and encounters of his wanderings, Gerling makes guest appearances at theatre festivals all over the world. Gerling lives in the Schorfheide near Berlin.
