This object is a memento of a conversation about freedom in Dead Horse Bay. Together with a friend, I explored the bay's beach. Currents and a former landfill have deposited thousands of personal belongings, broken glass containers, and other non-decomposable materials, telling a story about New Yorkers, but also about people from other places. As a German who currently lives in the USA, and as an American whose Mexican family became Americans through new border demarcations, we exchanged our different experiences with the topic of freedom. While for him, freedom means being able to live with his family and return to university after a three-year prison sentence, for me, freedom means being able to travel, be unattached, and choose where I live. Our own stories turned out to be just as fragmented, multifaceted, and complex as the lives and snapshots to which the objects in the bay refer. Similar to the objects, we understand ourselves as living in a new context, but also shaped and transformed by our new surroundings. This conversation made me question and re-evaluate many aspects of the freedom I grew up with in Germany. This article brings together his and my own finds from the bay, without revealing who found them.
