THE MEANING OF LIFE (NEW YORK, BERLIN, CHONGQING)
Slideshow Video of 303 Photographs, HDV, 16:9, 40’24’’
2008-2009

This project was realized over the course of one year in three cities and on three continents. In New York, Berlin and Chongqing Clemens Wilhelm stopped strangers in the street and asked them: What is the meaning of life? He photographically portrayed 101 people in each city with their hand written answers.
This question unites and separates people in East and West. In America, Asia and Europe people are dealing with the meaning of life in various ways. The conceptual frame of the series allows individual expression. The network of individual answers draws a portrait of each city.
When looking at these images one immediately starts to read and decode the individual appearances for cultural markers. Who is this? Where does he/she come from? What is his/her role in society? Details become important and hint at deeper meanings. Stereotypes and surprisingly individual answers follow one another. Personal philosophies are presented in an abbreviated way in the handwriting, but also show in the choice of clothing, the surroundings and in the gaze into the camera.
The three cultures differ from each other, but there is also a tremendous overlap. The Meaning of Life series revolves around the possibly biggest of philosophical questions and confronts the viewer with it by showing a variety of answers of strangers. There is some irony in the difference between the small white sheet of paper and the scope of the question. The futility and absurdity of the search for an absolute answer echo throughout the series. The number of 101 images may remind us of the infinite number of possible answers. But is a question less interesting just because it cannot be answered?