Divided Memories
In September 2024, elections will be held in three East German states. In Brandenburg and Saxony, the established parties are dramatically losing support among the population. In Thuringia, the Alternative for Germany party, founded in 2013, wins the election. The differences between East and West Germany seem as evident as they have not been since the time of the Iron Curtain. Parties of all political orientations repeatedly exploit the differences between East and West.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and the subsequent reunification of Germany, a process of incorporating the examination of the SED dictatorship into the cultural discourse of remembrance also began. Museums were established, and places where the Wall had divided the German people were transformed into memorial sites.
This work deals with the visual elements of the culture of remembrance concerning the examination of the SED dictatorship. Through a fragmented visual language and documentary photographic approaches, I aim to depict various aspects of the culture of remembrance. Scientifically, this work primarily addresses the functionality of the culture of remembrance and Germany's collective memory, placing particular emphasis on the peculiarities of German remembrance culture.
Through the Iron Curtain
(ongoing)
In August 1961, construction of the Berlin Wall begins. What follows are 28 years of division of Germany. Families are separated, the east is finally sealed off from the west. In the GDR, the Berlin Wall and the inner-German border are referred to as the "anti-fascist protective wall". In the years that followed, this border from Bavaria to the Baltic Sea became a deadly swath through Germany. For this project I document the visible remnants of the inner-German border and meet people who flee from the GDR to the Federal Republic in various ways.
Silent Witness
The Life of a Crime Scene Cleaner
Behind every crime scene, there is a story. Marcell Engel works as a crime scene cleaner in Frankfurt am Main. He handles the cases that we usually do not notice in our daily lives. Cleaning crime scenes and accident sites are part of his daily routine. He is also responsible for cleaning apartments where lonely people have died.
I accompanied the well-known crime scene cleaner and speaker Marcell Engel in his daily work as a crime scene cleaner to show what he experiences in his job.
Derek *2008 †2019
At the age of 2,5 Derek gets introduced to his future foster family. His biological mother drank during pregnancy. Soon he was diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). unsuperable hurdles of bureaucracy to get treatment and mistreatment by public authorities led to his suicide in 2019.
Hide and Seek
The Project Hide and Seek is meant to raise awareness about people with mental health issues. The following pictures show Mia* that at the age of 8 developed a self harming condition. We met in mutual consent to do this project about one month after her suicide attempt.
(*Name has been changed)
​
