ALLES MOGLICHE, WENN MOGLICH by TIZIAN MACHTOLF

Some journeys take us somewhere. Others change the person we travel with. Tizian

Machtolf’s Alles Mögliche Wenn Möglich begins in the space left behind by loss, and becomes a journey between two generations. Travelling through southern Italy with his grandmother, Tizian turns an intimate family experience into something stranger, warmer and more cinematic — a collection of moments where memory, humour, tenderness and the absurd quietly coexist. His photographs feel less like isolated images than fragments of a film: scenes from a journey, gestures between two people, moments that seem to belong to a story we are only beginning to understand.

S.N. Before we enter this particular story, where did photography begin for you? What first made you want to turn everyday life into images?

T.M. Society, and everything around me, has always felt a bit strange to me — I felt curious about the world but couldn't understand it beyond its hard facts, couldn't place myself within it. My father gave me a small digital camera after high school, and suddenly I felt drawn to document my surroundings. It opened a new way of understanding, feeding my curiosity, my love for observing and interacting. Photography feels like research for me, an invitation to see things differently and to experience situations I would probably never experience without it.

S.N. Looking at your work, there is a strong sense of narrative — your photographs often feel like scenes rather than isolated images. When did you begin thinking about photography in this cinematic way?

T.M. At some point I felt a strong wish to stop making images that explain everything. Reading Umberto Eco, the idea of an "open work" really inspired me. Both consuming and creating, I appreciate pictures, that tell their story beyond surface level, that one can resonate with. When photographing people, I'm drawn to building a setting and then stepping back to observe what unfolds naturally. This, I think, leads to honest behavior, that the viewer can earnestly connect with. I embrace improvisation and try not to control everything.

S.N. Alles Mögliche Wenn Möglich begins with the death of your grandfather and the space that opened between you and your grandmother. Was this project something you consciously decided to make, or did the journey come first and the project reveal itself afterwards?

T.M. After my grandfather passed, the relationship slowly changed — space opened up, and we started to spend time beyond the occasional family gathering. We took two small trips together; she visited me in Milan and later in Hamburg.

After my grandfather passed, the relationship slowly changed — space opened up, and we started to spend time beyond the occasional family gathering. We took two small trips together; she visited me in Milan and later in Hamburg.

I was surprised how well we got along, and how much she enjoyed being away from home and exploring new things together with me. The idea of a longer trip, which then became this particular story, came to the both of us as a "What if..." type of conversation. We both had concerns that kept the idea as a hypothetical for a while, but we kept talking about it, until we decided to actually try it.

I knew beforehand that I wanted to capture our special connection, but the final story only revealed itself afterwards, during editing and processing the experience.

S.N. You travelled together for four weeks through southern Italy, towards Capri, a place she had always wanted to see. What happens to a relationship when you take it out of its familiar surroundings and place it on the road?

T.M. It changed everything. We had to function together, make decisions, test limits. We naturally left our roles as grandmother and grandson behind, and the attributes that came with them. Through that we connected on a completely new level. There was nothing I couldn't do just because she was with me; all the barriers we ever had vanished. It felt like being with a good friend, which is also what I would call her now.

S.N. There is something wonderfully unexpected in the images — a pickaxe, lemons beneath her feet, exercise, strange gestures, moments of humour. How much of this came from simply observing her, and how much did you create or provoke together?

T.M. We actively tried to push past expected narratives together. Photography gave us space to do that without it feeling strange — it was a bit like playing, re-enacting stories from her past: the lemons, the pickaxe. We provoked a lot together, laughing about what others might think of certain scenes. It connected us through the shared experience.

S.N. Some photographs feel tender, others almost absurd. Did humour become a way of dealing with something as difficult as grief and the passage of time?

T.M. I wanted the project to hold all the different feelings that were around. We talked a lot about aging and death but there were many moments of joy and ease. I'd say humor didn't help us deal with the more difficult topics, as it was important for me to actually visualize and emotionally work through those feelings too, but it let us set them aside.

S.N. You describe the two of you as learning to exist together differently, "as two individuals on equal terms." Did making photographs change the way you saw your grandmother — or perhaps the way she saw you?

T. M. Photography opened a conversation between us. It became a process of negotiation — and inevitably raised the question of power: how much does the person being photographed – the "subject" hold? Communication was essential, and through it I learned a lot, both about her and about myself, including what had shaped her earlier in life. It mattered to me not to slip into my grandfather's position of power.

S.N. The project feels almost like a film without dialogue. There is a sense that we are moving from one scene to another, rather than simply looking at a collection of photographs. How did you think about sequencing, rhythm and the idea of the journey while editing the work?

T.M. Saeeda Shabbir, a good friend, and I edited the book together. Based on the trip and my own emotional arc, we developed a narrative and divided it into different chapters. While editing, I realized the images needed space to exist; we worked a lot with white space, gaps, and diptychs where needed. I like combining images to open up a certain way of reading, and I always try to build a rhythm within the sequence — like cutting a film, going through it again and again to feel what works and what helps the story evolve.

S.N. There is also a beautiful tension between the passage of time and the feeling of being completely present — her body, her face, the places you visited, the small gestures between you. Were you thinking about ageing and memory while making the work, or did those ideas emerge later?

T.M. There was a contrast between her impressive youthfulness and the non- negotiable fact of age(ing). I was always thinking about the fact that this could be the last time to ever spend this much time together. I think it's scary that you can be with someone and at the same time be super aware of that it can all be gone within a second.

S.N. Now that the journey is over and the photographs exist independently from the experience itself, what do you think you were really trying to preserve — your grandmother, the journey, your relationship with her, or a moment in your own life that could never happen in quite the same way again?

T.M. It's probably a bit of everything. What struck me most is the fact that we actually made this trip together — that it changed from not even an idea, to a „what if", to this memory we now share.

Over time, I realized that the trip itself was special, but what was even more special and fascinating was how we found a connection within it. The trip became less a journey through space and more a metaphor for a journey toward each other. It's this emotional process of closeness, the back-and- forth, and the difficulties along the way that I am so glad I could capture.