Was Bleibt
"Nothing is absolute; everything is relative. Even death is only absolute from the perspective of life."
Some experiences are so intense they can only be understood gradually, from a distance, over time. A stillbirth is such an experience: as instantly as love flows during birth, grief floods in during stillbirth. It moves in waves — lighter, heavier, softer — and it remains. It is allowed to remain.
This photo series by Marlene Rieck and Günter Valda captures what remains: a single naked body, seen from above, set against ash-like natural backgrounds. Created over a year, the nine images invite us to look. Because the grief is there.
The images offer a personal view into grieving a lost child — the physical and emotional scars that shift with grief. They open an intimate space for one’s own pain. One’s own grief. Because it, too, is there.
Until the stillbirth — this fierce, simultaneous encounter with life and death — becomes what it is: an experience that remains.
Some experiences are so intense they can only be understood gradually, from a distance, over time. A stillbirth is such an experience: as instantly as love flows during birth, grief floods in during stillbirth. It moves in waves — lighter, heavier, softer — and it remains. It is allowed to remain.
This photo series by Marlene Rieck and Günter Valda captures what remains: a single naked body, seen from above, set against ash-like natural backgrounds. Created over a year, the nine images invite us to look. Because the grief is there.
The images offer a personal view into grieving a lost child — the physical and emotional scars that shift with grief. They open an intimate space for one’s own pain. One’s own grief. Because it, too, is there.
Until the stillbirth — this fierce, simultaneous encounter with life and death — becomes what it is: an experience that remains.
