Strothe is a small village in northern Hesse.

A small community of two families has been growing here since 2016, who not only wanted to create a new home for themselves, but also wanted to live more independently of supermarkets and the food industry.

Together they founded the Falkenhof, where they now grow vegetables and fruit ecologically, socially and fairly in the form of solidarity agriculture (Solawi).

Ben Kuhlman

picture editor.

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The group of two families has grown over the years.

Today about 12 adults and six children live at the Falkenhof.

Young people keep coming for internships, but friends and acquaintances also visit the farm to be part of the community.

Many are looking for a deeper meaning in working with nature.

So did the photographer Victor Hedwig, who repeatedly visited the farm for his documentary work.

He too has asked himself questions to which he has not always found answers.

This is how a personal project came about and in the end Victor Hedwig at least found answers to our questions here.

In the foreword of the book for your photo project you ask yourself the question "How do you want to live?".

Did you find answers from this work?

During my research, I found a variety of ways to answer this question.

However, none of them correspond exactly to my own ideas.

Nevertheless, I was able to gather a lot of inspiration to get a picture of what I'm actually looking for.

The texts and the many conversations helped me to deal more deeply with the topics that had previously interested me: life in a community, the advantages and disadvantages of life in the country, agricultural work.

I have also found that there cannot be a clear answer to this question, as we are constantly evolving and should look at and question our realities of life differently again and again.

You could say that the work has given me a perspective for the near future.

From there I would probably ask myself the question again.

How did you come up with the topic?

The book "what we sow" is the thesis for my bachelor's degree.

So the topic practically fell at my feet, because I had to deal with the question of how to proceed or: "How do I want to live?".

Since I was already interested in community and country life, I started researching there as well.

A family friend of mine lives at the Falkenhof, so I was able to find direct access to the subject there.

What also made the Falkenhof interesting are the many people who made a stopover there to orientate themselves.

These are trainees or young people who come to the company for an internship.

They, too, deal intensively with the question of how they would like to live.

Many of us may not yet know how a Solawi works.

Would you like to tell us a little bit about that?