On a visit to Berlin a few years ago, we came across the Museum der Dinge (Museum of Things). Sprawled across the top floor of an old commercial building in a Turkish area of Berlin, this unusual, fascinating and quirky museum of design and (often bizarre) industrial objects fascinated us and I took many photographs. With the arrival of Covid and the beginning of lockdown I began a work trying to capture the anxiety, dislocation and sense of foreboding and fear that prevailed at the time. I had particularly wanted to use the female mannequin, but ended up creating the entire composition from 4 or 5 of my Museum der Dinge photographs. So this view does not actually exist, though it captures some of the precise and clinical feel of the place. During the work I sent some w.i.p. images to the Museum der Dinge who kindly responded with encouragement and support, offering to share the finished work on social media.
While making the picture I discovered the mannequin, or ‘Lulu”, was already famous, having appeared on the cover of the album of the same name by Lou Reed and Metallica.