Ein Dorf 1950–2022. Ute Mahler, Werner Mahler und Ludwig Schirmer

The “Ein Dorf 1950–2022” exhibition is a long-term project by three photographers. The project focuses on the Thuringian village of Berka and yet points far beyond its borders. In the 1950s, Ludwig Schirmer, father of the photographer Ute Mahler, was a master miller in Berka. As a self-taught photographer, he began to document everyday life, festivals, and his own life.

Without being aware of his father-in-law’s pictures, Ute’s husband Werner Mahler decided to photograph Berka for his degree thesis in 1977. A good 20 years later, in 1998, the magazine Der Stern asked him for an update, which was never published. Ute Mahler photographed Berka in 2021/22. As a family follow-up, she created a personal work about a home village.

All four works comprising over 120 photographs pose questions about continuity and change, about home, childhood, moving away and coming back, old and new, the familiar and the unfamiliar.

The exhibition was curated by Marit Lena Herrmann.

“Es bleibt ein Weg Wasser im Dorf”
Scenic Readings

Kerstin Hensel has selected poems, prose texts and songs about life in the village in East Germany after 1945, in the GDR and after 1989, which will be performed by students of the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch”.

Texts by Volker Braun, Kerstin Hensel, Sarah Kirsch, Wulf Kirsten, Uwe Kolbe, Reiner Kunze, Richard Leising, Kito Lorenc, Regina Scheer et al.

The readers are Sanila Bludova, Golo von Engelhardt, Linus Hüsum, Lina von Kries, Andrii Kudin, Henrik Mrochen, David Schnell, Stella Voge and Aya Michèle Zaghdoudi.

Text collage and direction: Kerstin Hensel

Thursday, 6 Mar, 20 Mar, 3 Apr, 24 Apr
each at 5 pm

Sunday, 9 Mar, 16 Mar, 6 Apr, 27 Apr
each at 2 pm

In the frame of EMOP Berlin – European Month of Photography 2025

In parallel to “Ein Dorf”, the Springer Gallery is hosting the exhibition “Farbenrausch” with rarely shown colour photographs by Ute Mahler, Werner Mahler and Ludwig Schirmer. Opening: 1 March, duration: 4 March to 19 July 2025.

Media partners