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When her father died, German artist Kerstin Honeit learned that she had nine half-siblings strewn across East and West Berlin. Unprepared to make overtures to a family she’d never known, Honeit sought a connection by inhabiting their identities and space. In a series of photographs called “Becoming 10,” Honeit transforms herself into these sibling strangers, wearing a wig and trucker cap to become her working-class brother, and a camel-hair coat and heels to play an elegant older sister. She then photographs herself in their respective neighborhoods, posing as she imagines them to be. In one example, Honeit stands outside a brother’s home on a winter morning, dressed in tailored pajamas and a robe. She is looking over her shoulder down a snowy path, towards a door that may never open, and it’s this image—of an artist both literally and metaphorically outside—that is so aptly representative of the rest of the collection.
