Briefe an die Vergangenheit / Letters to the Past, 2016 – 2026

This unbound book gathers pages inscribed with letters written over time. Begun in 2016, it now has 13 pages, and Ilse Schreiber-Noll adds new pages each year. Like her large bound book, it incorporates images from Germany, the country she emigrated from to the United States. Each page depicts farms and village buildings, reflecting the agricultural landscapes of her upbringing. The works trace connections between rural Germany and the United States shaped by histories of migration: alongside people, knowledge of building, farming, and land use crossed the Atlantic, leaving lasting impressions on American agricultural landscapes. Covered in sand, the pages evoke time and history as layered and partially obscured. The sand works as both material and metaphor, marking place, memory, and duration. Across these surfaces, her letters to the past emerge as fragmented, nearly illegible texts, suggesting how memory shifts and resists full clarity over time.

Mixed media and Xerox Transfer on stained Buetten Paper

13.5 x 10 x 1.25 inches

Unique