Die Wunderbaren Jahre, 2018
When The Power Has Gone ( 2018/2024)
https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/
Born in the 1960s in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), my generation grew up on one side of a divided Germany, without knowing the other. We lived in a parallel universe, a reality isolated from Western democracy, yet shaped by the conviction of socialist progress and superiority. In 1978, when Sigmund Jähn became the first German in space, this achievement was presented as proof of socialism’s success. Sputnik symbolised a promised future in which the victory of communism seemed inevitable.
Freedom of the press and publishing in the GDR was entirely controlled by the regime. Publications had to pass through multiple stages of censorship, and access to books was restricted. Writers and readers learned to navigate what could and could not be said, reading between the lines. Possessing or sharing forbidden books carried considerable risks.
I recently rediscovered notebooks from the early 1980s containing poems and short stories by East German authors such as Reiner Kunze, Peter Huchel and Sarah Kirsch. These works were only available to me for a limited time. I copied them by hand, photographed them onto film, and a friend typed many of the texts on a typewriter. Such literature was rarely accessible in the GDR.
For this series, I deconstructed these notebooks and film rolls and photographed them again. Fragments of handwriting, typed text and photographic film dissolve into abstract forms resembling planets suspended against a dark background. The images preserve traces of forbidden literature while transforming them into a visual constellation of memory, absence and survival.
The title of the series is a homage to Reiner Kunze. His banned book Die wunderbaren Jahre, published only in the West in 1976, consists of short stories portraying everyday life for young people in the GDR and revealing the contradictions of a totalitarian system. Kunze questioned censorship, ideological control and the military education of children. As a teenager, I identified with his descriptions of young people who were threatened or excluded for their appearance, interests or refusal to conform.
Deconstructed notebooks and film rolls containing my handwritten copies of forbidden East German literature.
12 images, 60 × 60 cm.
https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/
Born in the 1960s in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), my generation grew up on one side of a divided Germany, without knowing the other. We lived in a parallel universe, a reality isolated from Western democracy, yet shaped by the conviction of socialist progress and superiority. In 1978, when Sigmund Jähn became the first German in space, this achievement was presented as proof of socialism’s success. Sputnik symbolised a promised future in which the victory of communism seemed inevitable.
Freedom of the press and publishing in the GDR was entirely controlled by the regime. Publications had to pass through multiple stages of censorship, and access to books was restricted. Writers and readers learned to navigate what could and could not be said, reading between the lines. Possessing or sharing forbidden books carried considerable risks.
I recently rediscovered notebooks from the early 1980s containing poems and short stories by East German authors such as Reiner Kunze, Peter Huchel and Sarah Kirsch. These works were only available to me for a limited time. I copied them by hand, photographed them onto film, and a friend typed many of the texts on a typewriter. Such literature was rarely accessible in the GDR.
For this series, I deconstructed these notebooks and film rolls and photographed them again. Fragments of handwriting, typed text and photographic film dissolve into abstract forms resembling planets suspended against a dark background. The images preserve traces of forbidden literature while transforming them into a visual constellation of memory, absence and survival.
The title of the series is a homage to Reiner Kunze. His banned book Die wunderbaren Jahre, published only in the West in 1976, consists of short stories portraying everyday life for young people in the GDR and revealing the contradictions of a totalitarian system. Kunze questioned censorship, ideological control and the military education of children. As a teenager, I identified with his descriptions of young people who were threatened or excluded for their appearance, interests or refusal to conform.
Deconstructed notebooks and film rolls containing my handwritten copies of forbidden East German literature.
12 images, 60 × 60 cm.
