erde, wind & feuer
These images represent a selection from a long-term project reflecting events within my family’s history around the time of the Second World War. All images were taken in the Donetsk region of Ukraine using a large-format camera and the tricolour photographic technique. Turning black and white photographs into colour allows me to reflect on these historical events within the photographic reproduction process.
Millions of people lost their lives in the Donetsk region in the early 19th century. In 1945, my grandfather died in a prison camp in the area together with several thousand other people from Upper Silesia. We do not know where he is buried and all that remains is a small diary written in tiny script, which I inherited from my father. Many images spring to mind when reading such a powerful document. The long and inhuman train journeys, the work in the coalmines, hunger and starvation, and the awful living conditions. His failed escape through the woods, after which he was sentenced to death by hard labour in an iron foundry. And, perhaps hardest of all, his longing to be reunited with his family.
These images are an attempt to capture a ghost that has been buried by the immense brutality of history and is still manifested in the conflicts of today.
The exhibition took place at Noplace in November 2014.
