Sarah Poppel is an independent art historian, researcher, writer, translator and copy editor based between Mexico and Germany. She studied Art History and Spanish philology in Tübingen, Mérida (Venezuela) and Berlin. Her master's thesis addressed the beginnings of abstract art in Brazil during the 1940s. Since 2009, she has participated in international art projects, exhibitions and publications, presented at conferences, and given University seminars about modern and contemporary art from Latin American countries (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico). Between 2016 and 2019 she was responsible for the cultural program in the areas of visual arts and music at Goethe-Institut Mexiko in Mexico City.
about snapshots
Shortly before finishing my master’s degree in Art History, I had the great pleasure to accompany an extraordinary lady – a graphic designer in her early eighties. During our weekly explorations of Berlin’s museum landscape, I appreciated her exquisite taste, relentless honesty, and witty sense of humor for the arts and the art world. We played a game at every exhibition: “Which piece do you want to take home?” I must confess, I was rather bad at this game in the sense that I could hardly select just one. But ever since I have continued the habit, as a good practice and a homage to my dear friend. Hence, at least one particular artwork among the mass of pieces we encounter in exhibitions stays in my mind – resisting oblivion.
This is how this archive of fleeting moments came into being. It is a collection of impressions that touched me, appealed to me in some way or the other, and triggered a certain feeling, idea, or attitude.
A snapshot is a quickly taken picture. The motive is often captured in a slightly oblique angle, sometimes even a bit out of focus due to lighting conditions or the unsteadiness of the hand. Instead of documentary perfection, these snapshots hint at the very process of documenting, in which photography fulfills the role of a quick note. Like once hasty scribblings into a notebook did to memorize some bits of information. Taking a photo might be quicker and somehow more comfortable than writing a note. The rapidly growing amount of these new visual notes has already become part of the general inflation of images that we witness in our daily (digital) lives. Many images we take disappear in the vastness of our digital storages, and social media accounts, or end in the bin without ever being looked at again. Eventually, they fail to fulfill the aim they were taken in the first place, to be a reminder, to help us memorize what attracted our attention, what seemed important to us, and what we wanted to save from oblivion.