Introduction

Enveloped by the black of the night, illuminated by artificial lighting, the leaves of the palm tree are bowing to the stormy wind. In the flashlight the partly withered palm leaves are evidence of the daytime's sun and heat. The trunk is making a motionless stand against its blowing crown. The seven photographs of Annette Kelm's series I Love the Little Baby Giant Panda, I'd Welcome One to My Veranda show how the storm increases. Positioned centrally, and each time shot from the same perspective, it is only the wind which varies the motif. Used as an attribute of beach and sea, the palm tree stands for sun, summer and South. Kelm's series focuses merely on the palm tree without even disclosing its particular context. At nighttime, in the wind, and without any horizon, the palm tree lifts itself from its usual theme becoming, thus, its own effigy.