Yana Wernicke – Companions

Wernicke documents with subtle grace the close bonds between two young women and the farm animals that they rescue, love, play with and care for, in a series mixing German romanticism and modern ethics.

John Berger’s landmark Why Look at Animals? describes the ‘species loneliness’ of modern man: how the ancient relationships between humans and nature have broken down, reducing the existence of animals to marginalised objects, as commodities, and as Other. Concerned with modern humanity’s yearning for a deeper connection to ecology, Wernicke’s series is a touching portrait of two young women who have established profound relationships with animals. Rosina and Julie each independently save animals from certain death and create bonds of love and trust with animals typically considered solely for their economic value.

In German, Companions, or Weggefährten, is a hybrid word that translates literally as ‘those who walk the path together’. Through tenderness, touch and intuition, Wernicke’s camera follows that path – of joy, emotions, tenderness and play between humans and animals – striving to close the gulf between our emotional consciousness and those of the other animals we live alongside.

• Yana Wernicke (b. 1990) is a German photographer currently based in a small town close to Frankfurt am Main. Her work often revolves around the photographic depiction of animals and humankind’s relationship to nature and other beings.
  
  Recent publications include Zenker (Edition Patrick Frey, 2021) in collaboration with Jonas Feige, which addresses the history of German colonialism in Cameroon.
  

• Print Edition also available
  
  
• 112 pages, 170 × 240 mm, 52 tritone plates
  Section-sewn quarter-bound silkscreened hardcover
  
  Edited by Sarah Chaplin Espenon at Loose Joints
  Designed and Published by Loose Joints
  
  LJ176, February 2023 
  ISBN 978-1-912719-30-3
  
  

• Narrated video flipthrough by Loose Joints

  
  
• Press:
• The Observer
• The Guardian
• Financial Times
• Document Journal
• Creative Review
• Konbini Arts (in French)
• Another Magazine
• Der Greif
• Atmos
• Zeit (in German)
• Taz (in German)
• Público (in Portuguese)
  
  
  
• Berlin launch Thurs 09 March 2023, Bildband Berlin