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leerlauf
parasitenpresse, 2026
poetry book
parasitenpresse, 2026
poetry book
In leerlauf, a holiday hides in emptiness, a throat in a hug, snow in home and home in snow. The poems drift between languages, generations, and places, following words as they split, gather, and return. Composed through repetition, mistranslation, and listening, the poems of leerlauf linger among scattered traces and the unexpected relations that bind them. And so, a world is created.
The images of leerlauf are collaged from photographs of abandoned buildings in my hometown. Many were taken during walks with my parents. Unlike me, they knew a factory where my grandma worked, a bakery that made soft, moon-shaped breads on Sundays, and they knew there was Bosna — a shoe shop: they walked the world with our country on their feet.
Without the possibility of sharing the past, I see these sites as bricks, walls, and faded signs hinting at another time. Their insides haunt me: while hearing about a secret pool table in one of the basements, I look through a broken window / a missing wall / and find — not a story — but its scattered parts:
a wrapper from a bounty bar
a blue peg
a red heart
a used condom
a yellow straydog, sleeping in the shade
a blue peg
a red heart
a used condom
a yellow straydog, sleeping in the shade
what am I to do with them?
As I write, I remember a long-dead pigeon in a window of an old factory. I chose not to photograph the bird, for the bird is a body, and a body that can’t escape shall not be captured. To many, this building is “TRIKO”. To me, it is “the-window-in-which-the-bird-had-died”.
This is our difference.
In 2024, leerlauf was awarded by the Sarajevo Photography Festival and exhibited at the Bosnian Cultural Center.
The making of leerlauf was supported by a year-long grant awarded by the Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion in 2023.