Jakob Sinn

In the eyeball, there is an area without photoreceptors, known as the "blind spot," located where the optic nerve connects to the brain. Since we usually have two eyes and the distance between our eyes and the objects we look at, as well as the angle of vision, constantly changes, the "blind spot" only peripherally affects our vision.

However, the "blind spot" can also be metaphorically compared to our perception of the world. There are things, phenomena, and processes that only some of us are able to recognize and understand. It is said that our world is not the only one, but that it divides, like a living organism, into cells containing millions upon millions of small worlds. Each person lives in their own unique world and perceives things differently from how we do. Our own world is difficult to explain, as it is so different from what other people know, and how can we grant others insight into this world if not through the lens of a camera?

“Doors are holes in walls for entering and exiting. One goes out to experience the world and gets lost within it, and one returns home to find oneself again, losing in the process the world that one sought to conquer.” (1)

In Happy World, Jakob Sinn takes the viewer on a journey through his own visual worlds, showing details that we would fleetingly overlook in passing, and invites us to pause for a moment to look behind the scenes. His minimalist images are marked by a melancholic stillness. He focuses on things that initially seem banal but begin to come together as a whole when you look at them for longer.

— (1) Vilém Flusser »Durchlöchert wie ein Emmentaler - Über die Zukunft des Hauses«, 4.3.1998, Telepolis (Stand 4/2007)

Text by Rosa Roth