In Interstellar Nights, Mario Wezel turns a period of family change into a photographic study of care. While his younger son was being weaned, he placed a thermal camera above the family bed. Over five nights, it recorded the movements of waking, feeding, carrying and comforting. Mother, father and child appear as bodies moving through a shared space: sometimes close, sometimes apart, continually adjusting their positions in relation to one another. The title’s astronomical image gives these ordinary gestures a way of being seen beyond the familiar conventions of the family photograph.
The work also begins with Wezel’s account of his own position during breastfeeding. He describes a mixture of jealousy, awe and relief as he watches a bond in which he feels partly a spectator. Weaning becomes a moment when those relationships and responsibilities can change. By including himself in the images, he approaches fatherhood through presence and shared care. The thermal camera makes bodily proximity and movement visible in an unfamiliar form, while the repeated setting keeps the photographs anchored in a particular domestic experience.
The book translates these images into silver ink on black paper. Designed by Rob van Hoesel, the 128-page softcover is published by The Eriskay Connection in collaboration with Éditions Images Vevey. This regular edition, published in 2026, contains German and English text and measures 205 × 280 mm according to the publisher. Its interest lies in the meeting of a specific photographic method and an intimate subject: changes in parental roles are explored through the repeated, physical acts of looking after a child.
