In my research projects, I have conducted many narrative interviews about burdensome or even traumatic biographical experiences. Parents told me about their child's illness, dying and death. Children told me about their illness and the high probability of dying earlier than others. Parents reported their grief and shame at seeing their children live in foster care. Sons and daughters of traumatised parents told me what it was like to grow up under these conditions and how they want to prevent the transmission of traumatic experiences to their children. Women and men told me about their experiences of violence, their manifold injuries and pain. Adopted people described the effects that separation from their biological parents can have on their own lives and identities.

 

These strains, tensions, cracks, wounds, fractures and breaks in the life of a person and a family are my area of research.

 

During the oral narratives, I learned that it is not only words that tell a story, but also bodies, spaces and artefacts. I listened not only with my ears, but also with my body and my feelings. I tensed up, stiffened, froze, sweated, felt constricted, felt aversion, held back tears or was irritated that I was not crying. After the narratives, some stories remained inside me and only slowly found their way out again. Some stories and images are still inside me.

 

I encountered people who could not express parts of their experiences of violence in words, but only through paintings, dance or poems. Creative forms of expression gave voice to the unspeakable and indescribable.

 

These experiences led to a desire to explore the possibilities of research beyond the actual oral conversation.

 

Strains, tensions, cracks, wounds, fractures and breaks: where do I end up when I do not think in terms of a scientific discipline or a specific method, but focus exclusively on the phenomenon?

 

Where do I end up when I meander with open senses and an alert body and mind, exploring the phenomenon from less familiar or unknown perspectives?

 

Where do I end up when I leave my scientific comfort zones and take the risk of never finding new shores or not being understood?

 

These questions marked the beginning of my exploration.

 

I worked with the principle of serendipity. This concept refers to the ability of a creative individual to notice and make use of unexpected events, exploring their underlying causes and transforming them into valuable insights. Such creativity arises when researchers embrace uncertainty and are willing and able to improvise during their investigations—a process that rarely follows a straight path. By engaging in unconventional and less predictable activities, they increase the likelihood of discovering something meaningful and beneficial. Fostering serendipity, therefore, involves stepping beyond one’s (methodological) comfort zone and experimenting with alternative approaches. Although researchers begin with specific questions, they remain receptive to unexpected findings that may differ entirely from their initial focus but still hold significant potential.

 

Against this background, I took five methodological decisions: 

 

• To start without having an idea of the result – and to let go of the anxiety attached to this approach. 

• To opt for a very broad understanding of cracks and fractures, including various fields of occurrence such as nature, buildings, objects, social relationships, bodies, and mental wellbeing. 

• To formulate sensitizing research questions in dialogue with a child and to include her as a co-researcher in parts of data collection and analysis. 

• To carry out the project outside my familiar cultural and geographical environment. 

• To apply art-informed sensory-ethnographic approaches. 

 

In January until April 2023, in December 2024 and in September/October 2025 I have travelled three Indian cities (Mumbai, Kolkata, Shantiniketan) . I was interested to get to know of and meet artists working on any kind of cracks and fractures – and to learn from their concepts, thoughts, sources of inspiration, techniques and materials. In addition, I documented cracks and fractures that I witnessed in my surroundings with the help of photography, videos, audio-recordings, and texts. I digitalized the material, decided on categories of cracks and fractures and selected those elements of my documentation that I would use to illustrate the categories.   

 

Inspired by three-dimensionality of some of the art work that I have explored, I have categorized the collected materials into so called “assemblages of cracks”, i.e. collections of materials on specific types of cracks such as broken nature, broken sky, broken buildings, broken objects, broken bodies, broken lifes, and broken humanity. An assemblage is a non-hierarchical, temporary and fluid grouping of people, objects, practices, ideas and institutions, whose form and message changes depending on the perspective from which it is viewed.

 

During my exploration I learnt new possibilities of deep learning by exposure, out of the box thinking, the value of working with sensitizing concepts such as cracks and fractures for discovery and dialogue, and the opportunities that arise when we dare to supplement scientific rigour with serendipity.

 

I discovered new ways to get into a topic, and to explore and dimensionalise it.

 

As scientists, we want to close gaps. What I learned in my process: stories can lie dormant, wait, emerge and grow in the gaps that are caused by ruptures. This website is dedicated to them.

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Explore the assemblages.