EXHIBITION | Wüstungen

“Wüstungen” (deserted areas) are places on the eastern side of the former inner-German border that were razed to the ground between 1952 and 1988. They interfered with the free field of fire, were difficult to guard or were simply too close to the border.

Anne Heinlein has taken large-format black and white landscape photographs of the places where nothing built has stood for decades. Meadows, forests, landscape corners and small areas can be seen in which the viewer can imagine houses, streets and courtyards as if on an empty stage. It appears to be landscape photography, but with the knowledge behind the image, it becomes a space for reflection on the meaning of home and its loss, but also on nature, which reclaims its space unaffected by everything.

In order to understand why the places were devastated, Heinlein and Gnaudschun researched the historical background in the archives of the Stasi, border troops, the Federal Border Guard and in museums. The artists interviewed contemporary witnesses and searched for symbols in their private photo albums. Many of these testimonies can be seen in the exhibition installation, which works with documentary material on various levels.

In the accompanying illustrated book, Göran Gnaudschun juxtaposes these images with his texts. The layering of time levels is important to him: he combines his own experience of the deserted areas with the history of the places and the fates of the former inhabitants. In his deliberately free handling of the documentary material, it becomes clear that large abstract plans always have personal consequences. Images and texts address the passing of time, the handling of memory and the significance of flight and expulsion as the effects of closed and heavily guarded borders.

https://www.freiheit.org/de