From July 1944 to April 1945, Lisa Garnier’s grandmother, Gisèle Chartraire was deported to the German concentration camp Ravensbrück. During the imprisonment she made a small notebook for writing down recipes told by her fellow prisoners – recipes exchanged in the heart of hell where hunger rubbed shoulders with the absurd and arbitrary.

What does the little notebook tell us about survival? Was it just about imaginary meals?

Le Livre de recettes / The Recipe Book is an intimate story, in words and pictures, about visual senses, imprisoned women and Lisa Garnier’s need to track down her own family affiliation. An act of resistance to oblivion, an act of transmission since recipes are only worthwhile if they are shared.

Lisa Garnier lives outside Paris and works on nature-human interactions as a writer, photographer and scientific specialist.