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Life Before Death. noch mal leben: portraits of the dying.
photographs by Walters Schels. texts by Beate Lakotta.
This exhibition features people whose lives are coming to an end. It explores the experiences, hopes and fears of the terminally ill. All of them agreed to be photographed shortly before and immediately after death.
The photographer Walter Schels and the journalist Beate Lakotta spent over a year preparing this exhibition in hospices in northern Germany. They made portraits of 26 people who were very close to death. The exhibition articulates the experiences, hopes and fears of the dying, and gives them one more opportunity to be heard.
Heiner Schmitz
Many of them come in twos, because they don’t want to be alone with him. What do you talk about with someone who’s been sentenced to death? Some of them even say “get well soon” as they’re leaving. “Hope you’re soon back on track, mate!” “No one asks me how I feel,” says Heiner Schmitz. “Because they’re all shit scared. I find it really upsetting the way they desperately avoid the subject, talking about all sorts of other things. Don’t they get it? I’m going to die! That’s all I think about, every second when I’m on my own.”
photographs by Walters Schels. texts by Beate Lakotta.
This exhibition features people whose lives are coming to an end. It explores the experiences, hopes and fears of the terminally ill. All of them agreed to be photographed shortly before and immediately after death.
The photographer Walter Schels and the journalist Beate Lakotta spent over a year preparing this exhibition in hospices in northern Germany. They made portraits of 26 people who were very close to death. The exhibition articulates the experiences, hopes and fears of the dying, and gives them one more opportunity to be heard.
Heiner Schmitz
Many of them come in twos, because they don’t want to be alone with him. What do you talk about with someone who’s been sentenced to death? Some of them even say “get well soon” as they’re leaving. “Hope you’re soon back on track, mate!” “No one asks me how I feel,” says Heiner Schmitz. “Because they’re all shit scared. I find it really upsetting the way they desperately avoid the subject, talking about all sorts of other things. Don’t they get it? I’m going to die! That’s all I think about, every second when I’m on my own.”