“The Sounding Skeleton of Blood bereft, Besides her Bones and Voice had nothing left. Her Bones are petrifiedd, her Voice is found In Vaults, where still it Doubles every Sound.”
Ovid, Metamorphoses, iii, 354 – 404.

Echo in the greek mythology was a Nymph that fell in love with Narcissus who in turn was in love with his reflection in the lake. For her unrequited love Echo started to melt, until she lost her bodily self. Until she was only bones and sound, and at last only sound.

The radio plays Bach’s eight part of the Overture in French Style BWV 831, Echo.

A constant digging and undigging. A process of metamorphosis. Echo ritualistically (or one could say, mechanically) prepares her self to die, to let go of the fear of losing oneself and be re-born in a new state. A corpse is entombed and a seed is blooming. If one can reinvent themself, if one can be liberated from the fear, and the past, and time, and the otherness, and the need for belongingness, then can one build a new world, all by themself? One goes beyond themself, through themself. One goes beyond the body, through the body.

Photographs by Abdul-Haqq Mahama.
Supported by the Goethe Institut.