Couch Searching is a personal take on the theme of immigration, finding a new home and loneliness in a big city. At the same time it's a celebration of a long-lasting Berlin tradition of giving one's stuff away, also known as "Zu verschenken'' (German "To give away for free"). One encounters the following scene quite often: an abandoned sofa or its "smaller companion" right in the middle of the street, evicted from the heavens of someone's home's comfort and brought into the hostile environment of the city.

Some of these homeless pieces find their new place at a new apartment, others end up at the BSR dump. But until that moment comes, couches adorn the streets of Berlin, creating a surrealistic imagery. Being an object that doesn't belong here they bring home-like coziness to the environment that lacks any kind of hospitality.

This set of photos was being assembled through a couple of years and has inevitably gained some conceptual weight, since I chose one object and aimed at capturing it in its different variations and in all four seasons. An old cheap analog camera was used to make the process of gathering the material more "true" to the subject. To address the dual nature of the images I've added the frames and decorations that are usually associated with "loud luxury". By doing so, I was hoping to show that, when placed in the urban landscape, a simple everyday object acquires some novel unique connotations and provokes a complex emotional response.