I Am Waldviertel, Carla Kogelman

In 2012, photographer Carla Kogelman was commissioned by Szene Bunte Wähne, a youth theater festival in Austria, to make a documentary about the rural Waldviertel region. She ended up in Merkenbrechts, a small bio village of 170 inhabitants where she met Hannah and Alena, two sisters who spend much of their time together in a carefree life, swimming, playing outdoors, and engrossed in games around the house. "In an idealized world, peace is the visualization of the paradise lost long ago.

And, as life goes... Suddenly you hit on the series by Dutch photographer Carla Kogelman. Her work comes across as a bit old-fashioned. It plays with the idea of the 'good old times', the atmosphere of a happy childhood. Carefree, honest, unpretentious, incorruptible. What you see in her black-and-white photographs is an era of inquisitiveness, cheerfulness and warmth.

It makes you all melancholy and calm. These are moments of sheer magic that Kogelman has captured. Moments of a pristine nature, intact. Children splash around in the lake, romp through the garden, wade through the mud. Free, uninhibited, inspired, buoyed up by life, air, twilight.