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Anja Uhren
Mar. 6th, 2021 09:51 am
I've previously talked about two works of Anja Uhren, and since I'm combining my comments about several of her other titles into a single post, here are links to the earlier reviews of "encounters" and of "what is home".Content note: Sowing & Growing and Lost (Lives Unlived), and my reviews of them, deal with miscarriage and stillbirth, and the ensuing grief.
Irgendwo im Nirgendwo is a beautiful 24-page saddle-stapled comic in German. Lyrical and surreal, it sings a dark and depressive song in shades of red and mint and teal. Dreamlike, it searches for an escape, somewhere in nowhere, and reaches it, albeit ambiguously.
I‘m reviewing the 2nd print (2014) which has similar production values as „encounters“ and „what is home“ (see the two reviews linked above).
Reverie is a story by Jorja Tracy Hung & Liza Constantine, illustrated by Anja Uhren presented as a 12 page concertina/ leporello book. It tells of a breakup that hits the protagonist hard and unmoors her, until she finds a moment and thought that grounds her again. The story is short, the symbolism used to great effect. Speech ballons transforming into a string circling the neck. Inset flashback panels alternating with the present, reminiscent of images in the rear-view mirror, shrinking into the distance. The use of framing in general, and when faces are visible. The moment in the story when the readers has to turn the concertina over to continue the story coincides with the protagonist falling, tumbling. And, probably most obvious, the color symbolism. Reverie is very short, but well worth it.
Sowing & Growing is a 16-page concertina comic in square format (ca. 11cm) telling about a miscarriage after 3 months of pregnancy. Anja Uhren narrates it in simple words, using only two speech bubbles for words by others. She combines quiet colors, dominated by pastel mint green and tones of red ranging from soft pink to violet and lilac, with a strong sense for light and shadow. The comic transports a muted mix of sadness and hope.
Culture Clash collects diary comics telling how Anja Uhren first met her Nigerian in-laws. It is a square softcover book (14,8 x 14,8 cm) containing 31 episodes on 184 pages. Uhren uses primarily earthy tones with textures, which work well with her expressive ink lines. The comic is both honest and funny, a cute story about nervosity and bonding, love and differences. Uhren treats the interpersonal, intercultural, and interracial contrasts with respect and heart.
Lost (Lives Unlived) incorporates Sowing & Growing as preliminary tale, and deals with Uhren‘s baby loss near the end of her following pregnancy. The comic starts by talking to the sibling from the previous pregnancy which ended in a miscarriage. Visually, it incorporates the plant theme from Sowing & Growing, using twining branches of leaves as panel borders (next to other visual cues, such as cloud shapes), and tells about how different the two pregnancies felt during the first months. The comic then chronicles events and feelings, partly with exact dates, from Februar to June – some details unrelated to the pregnancy like the partner‘s broken leg, and the changes brought by the covid-19 pandemic. But the focus is on March, when around the start of the third trimester the baby‘s heart stopped beating. The art and writing is intense, raw, grappling with the confusion, despair, and suffering. Uhren stays with the emotions, staring in their overwhelming faces. The guilt. Of letting the baby die. And the difficulty of accepting this feeling. She addresses procedures right after stillbirth, and aftercare, and how glad she was to have certain choices in her situation. While still raw, the tale is much more gentle expressing the grief, love, and healing of the following months. An afterword encourages people to talk about stillbirth, to get past the taboo and help those who experienced it share their stories and find acceptance and support.
I‘ve read it three times now, and cried every time (at several points). Given the impression that parts of the book were created during the pregnancy, and the intense and intimate subject, it is remarkable how Uhren manages to capture the range of different emotions and the depth of her story, often using color as a foundation, while tying it all together artistically and visually. Depending on the current needs she sometimes employs several rectangular panels per page, sometimes single panels, sometimes full page illustrations with or without inset panels, sometimes eschewing traditional panel borders altogether to arrange the elements freely. Uhren fills her space deftly, making the deliberate emptiness in some pages stand out. This comic is structurally rich without feeling disconnected.
Like Sowing & Growing, this comic is a concertina book (14x14cm²), but much longer (156 pages). It is also available as a softcover. Anja Uhren first published it during Baby Loss Awareness Week, 9th-15th October 2020. The concertina version works well with the artwork, which strings the pages together like beads on a necklace, often with the art flowing in a continuous stream. Being able to see multiple connected pages next to each other by folding them out is satisfying and beautiful.
I highly recommend Lost (Lives Unlived).
There's a softness and warmth to Anja Uhren's art that I really like. She also seems to appreciate the materiality of paper, and it shows in her products. They are lovingly crafted objects of beauty; their words and images like a haunting hand holding your heart.
https://anjauhren.myportfolio.com/
