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

Ludwig Schirmer, from the series Ein Dorf, 1950 – 1960 © Ludwig Schirmer/OSTKREUZ

The exhibition “Ein Dorf 1950 – 2022. Ute Mahler, Werner Mahler und Ludwig Schirmer” is a long-term project by three photographers and at the same time a documentation of family history illustrating aspects of time and change. The project has its origins in the village of Berka in Thuringia, but extends far beyond the boundaries of that village.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Ludwig Schirmer, Ute Mahler's father, worked as a master miller in Berka. His great passion, however, was photography. Some years after the end of the Second World War he began to document everyday life, the celebrations and life in the village. In 1977, without being aware of father-in-law's photos, Werner Mahler decided to photograph his diploma thesis at the Leipziger Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Berka. In 1998, the magazine Der Stern asked him to update his work to show the changes since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The fourth group of works, photographed by Ute Mahler in Berka in 2021/22, can be viewed as a familial successor to the three other photographic projects and at the same time stands as an independent perspective.

All four works depict one location over a period of 70 years. They explore questions about continuity and change, about home, childhood, about moving away and returning, about old and new, about the familiar and the unknown.

An exhibition in the framework of EMOP Berlin – European Month of Photography

EMOP Berlin: what stands between us

Tobias Zielony, untitled From the series: Das, was euch am Leben erhält, ist was bei uns zu Asche zerfiel, 1997–2005. C-print, 15x10 cm. Courtesy of: KOW, Berlin

In these times of crisis-ridden developments, we allow ourselves to be drawn in emotionally and polarised by images and texts accompanying these events and crises. At the same time, people want to use their own voices – and images – to counter the growing social divide. But what actually, can we still learn and say with images, especially photographic ones? And isn't it the camera that stands between us? Incessantly recording the moment, it reinforces the respective certainties in countless channels and in their “bubbles”. Images deepen the divides, express dissent and often become a medium of polarisation themselves.

The festival exhibition breaks this cycle. Projects by some 20 artists present avenues for listening and learning from others and lending resonance to one’s counterpart through one’s own voice. In micro-stories, the works address such themes as the connection between social classification and educational opportunities, the ongoing experiences of exclusion of people with a migration background, experiences of the immediate post-reunification period or the radicalization of parts of society. But Russia's war against Ukraine and the increasingly crisis-ridden developments in the Middle East are also addressed – not with statements, but with questions.

With: Ilit Azoulay, Yevgenia Belorusets, Cana Bilir-Meier, Hannah Darabi & Benoît Grimbert, Fungi (aka Phuong Tran Minh), Bérangère Fromont, Beate Gütschow, Raisan Hameed, John Heartfield, Leon Kahane, Susanne Keichel, Simon Lehner, Boris Mikhailov, Pınar Öğrenci, Helga Paris, Einar Schleef, Maya Schweizer, Wenke Seemann, Christine Würmell, Tobias Zielony

The EMOP Berlin – European Month of Photography is organised by Kulturprojekte Berlin.
Curated by Maren Lübbke-Tidow