Still Life

Museum staff—gallery attendants, ticket sellers, cloakroom attendants, and technical workers—reflect the social, economic, and cultural realities of the places and periods in which they work. There was a time when elegant, impoverished women quietly knitted beside the artworks they guarded. In some countries today, young immigrants care for collections created by the cultural elite, while elsewhere still-active retirees choose museum work as a calm and predictable way to supplement their income. Although essential to the life of museums, these workers rarely become the subject of attention themselves.

Still Life – The Unknown Workers of the Ludwig Museum brings this overlooked community into focus through a series of biographical interviews with members of the Ludwig Museum's visitor services and technical staff. The conversations explored their previous professions, everyday work in the museum, encounters with visitors, and reflections on contemporary art. Based on these interviews, I photographed each participant and created a symbolic still life that condenses elements of their personal histories, occupations, memories, and personalities into a single image.

Alongside the photographic series, the project includes a publication combining the portraits, still lifes, and edited excerpts from the interviews. The participants' observations offer a rare perspective on museum life, visitor behaviour, institutional culture, and the accessibility of contemporary art. Their stories preserve forms of knowledge that are seldom recorded, revealing how those working behind the scenes understand the museum and its audiences.

The series concludes with a group photograph taken during the presentation of the project, when I presented each participant with a framed print of their still life. Together, the portraits, still lifes, publication, and documentation of this shared moment form a collective portrait of the people whose everyday work sustains the museum while enriching our understanding of contemporary art from a rarely represented point of view.