Strohschen – Samba Brazil Love

“With her photo project ‘Samba Brazil Love’ Britta Strohschen has immersed herself in the world of horse racing. The motivational crux of her photographic work is examining the fascinating relationship between human beings and animals, from tender attraction and symbiotic energy, to utter dependence and the efficient exercise of power. Her interest in the horse racing universe, with its highly complex interaction of myths, is not to tell a journalistic story or present a classical documentary. In the image flow of various aspects of the sport, from the stall to the winner’s cup, from fashionable women’s headwear and proud jockeys, from betting slips to borderline physical exertion, she has succeeded in piecing together a variegated visual sequence like a puzzle. The dramaturgy of the photographs displays neither a linear nor chronological ordering principle. Instead the layout encourages the viewer to succumb to a completely different rhythm. By changing pace constantly, snapshots of concentration are juxtaposed to the dynamic of human beings and horses at the boundaries of the action. The photography is in a position to lend the objects in the pictures their own language. With a fragmentary glimpse divorced from any causal relationships, they develop a very strong aesthetic presence. They become the building blocks of a narrative which stimulates the phantasy of the viewers, urging them to create their own image. The photographer is not concerned with how the world of horse racing ought to appear. Her viewpoint is completely anti-ideological, her fascination for the subject being guided from a critical distance. By doing so she avoids the trap of creating a myth or surrogate which simply connects the various dots of perception.” (Wolfgang Zurborn)