Halle / Leipzig (Germany) ///
Nikolaus Brade, photographer, Halle
Plattenbauabriss [Demolition of Pre-Fab Slab-Constructed Buildings]
2 large-format photographs, color, 2001-02
Two years ago, the first blocks of pre-fab slab-constructed buildings in Halle-Silberhöhe were torn down. The remaining residents continue to live between blocks of buildings that seem like mere backdrops, with blind windows and bricked-up entrances.
Axel Doßmann, cultural researcher, Berlin, and Anne König and Jan Wenzel, journalists, Leipzig
Halle-Silberhöhe oder: Das Schweigen von Alice Schmidt wird unterbewertet [Halle-Silberhöhe or: The Silence of Alice Schmidt is Underestimated]
Installation: city planning model, slide projections, and archive photos, 2003-04
The installation takes as its theme the recrystallization of urban structure, using the example of Halle's major residential development, Silberhöhe, which was built between 1979 and 1989 in sight of the chemical combine Buna. A series of short stories describes the changes in this district.
Anke Hagemann, architect, Berlin, and Heidi Stecker, art historian, Leipzig
Leipzig streitet um das Kirschberghaus [Leipzig Quarrels About the Kirschberghaus]
Documentation, 2003-04
Dealings with the increasing rightwing extremism in shrinking eastern German cities are depicted in the example of the Kirschberghaus youth club in Leipzig's Grünau district. At the end of the 1990s, this club was in danger of becoming the seedbed of a "national liberated zone".
Laura Horelli, artist, Berlin, and Kathrin Wildner, urban anthropologist, Hamburg
Wohnquartier Wolfen-Nord. Gehen und Bleiben - Arbeitspendler und Senioren [Residential District Wolfen-Nord. Leaving and Staying - Work Commuters and Senior Citizens]
Installation: 2 videos, 13 min. each, 2003-04
Since the end of communism, almost half the residents of the pre-fab slab-constructed development Wolfen-Nord have left it. Today, the proportion of retirees here is above average and the younger people often commute for a week at a time as temp workers.
Konrad Knebel, painter, Berlin
Landschaft in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde [Landscape in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde District]
Painting, tempera on canvas, 1981
Poster on the wall of Ostbahnhof, Berlin
Painting, oil on canvas 1992-1995
All his life, the painter Konrad Knebel has grappled artistically and politically with the phenomenon of the city. His painterly oeuvre is characterized by depictions of the deterioration of cities and empty and demolished historical structures.
niko.31, Leipzig (Jens Fischer, city planner; Katja Heinecke, artist; Reinhard Krehl, artist; Silke Steets, sociologist), with Nils Emde, photographer, Hamburg
Orbit Palast - Indizien für Typen und Räume freigesetzter Zeit [Orbit Palace - Evidence for Types and Spaces of Freed Time]
Installation: 7 lambda prints in an illuminated showcase, 2003
How do people spend their time in regions characterized equally by de-industrialization and a large amount of abandoned space? What spaces do they use and create for their activities?
Sofie Thorsen, artist, Vienna
Village fig.7/ +- Guided Tours
Slide projections with audio track, 14 min, 2004
Sofie Thorsen examines, visually and structurally, the development of a village on the outskirts of Leipzig, the dwindling of its village functions, and its simultaneous suburban metamorphosis through the construction of one-family homes and the emergence of businesses.
Clemens von Wedemeyer, artist, Berlin/Leipzig, with Frank Meyer, Dirk Sommer, and Holm Taddiken
Silberhöhe
Film installation, 10 min, loop, 2003
Silberhöhe transports the viewer to the day and night of a shrinking city. The camera moves, and the cuts follow an invisible story. But nothing happens and no one appears.
Rochus Wiedemer, architect, Berlin
Stadtumbau in Wolfen [Urban Changes in Wolfen]
Story in pictures, 2003-04
This didactic comic explores the conditions that lead to the current, often self-contradictory practice of demolishing pre-fab slab-constructed settlements and explains the background and consequences of the regulation of old debts and the city reconstruction program.
Rochus Wiedemer with Sabine Horlitz, architects, Berlin
Beleuchtete Wiesen [Illuminated Meadows]
Cartography, aerial and satellite photos, 2003
A picture documentation of the misguided German policy of promoting built but undertenanted business parks that compete for the settlement of new businesses.
Tobias Zielony, artist, Leipzig
Behind the Block
Installation: photo and text projection, 2000-2003
The everyday life of young people in the suburbs of Newport, Bristol, Marseille, and Halle. For many young people in Halle-Neustadt, growing up means seeking an identity of their own in a process of continually increasing societal marginalization.