In the spring of 2013, American photographer and blogger Foster Huntington travelled all over Germany with a van, asking people from all different kinds of people the same question: What is the most important thing you have?

Subsequently, he documented these beloved possessions by photographing them. A selection of these photos is currently on display in the exhibition Choices & Dialogues in Berlin. Meanwhile, anyone who was not encountered by the photographer in person was able to upload their own photos onto the platform 1istmirwichtig.de.We caught up with Foster Huntington to ask him the following questions:

Are there any possessions that keep cropping up in the photos time and again, and are they mostly of sentimental or of commercial value?

Cameras and computers. These let people create and store memories. All these have material value but they represent more than that. In the modern way, these things are people’s way to share and communicate their world with.

How many photos have you received, and is it possible to define our Zeitgeist through these objects that were chosen by people as their favourites?

The Burning House has received about 5 thousand submissions so far. Defining Zeitgeist is a pretty hard task…

What is important to you, and how you do you pack your suitcase in case your house was burning?

Not a lot of material things are important to me. Everything I have is more or less replacable. I try to keep it that way. My camper is probably the most important thing I own, it’s my home and primary way of getting around.