The f³ Masterclass Portrait exhibition brings together nine different approaches to contemporary portrait photography. Over the course of a year, the individual photographers developed their series under the guidance of Sibylle Fendt.

Participants discussed their work in-depth dialogue during regular project presentations. The authors‘ approaches are as diverse as both themselves and their protagonists.

The result is an impressive variety of narrative forms in which the focus remains fixed on the human experience. In humorous, melancholic, abstract, nostalgic, narrative, conceptual and collaborative works, we encounter namesakes, neighbours, soul mates, displaced people, disadvantaged people, our own families – and always ourselves.

Direction: Sibylle Fendt

Featured artists:

Sandra Buschow • Attila Hartwig • Silke Jacobsen • Nancy Jesse • Jörg Meier • Michael O’Ryan • Saskia Reis • Helen Stevens • Tara Wolff

Wednesday, Nov 9, 2022, 7 pm
Opening Reception

Sunday, Nov 13, 2022, from 1 pm
Finissage

SANDRA BUSCHOW

Fragmente

Sandra Buschow shows images from her ongoing long-term work “Fragments”. Using her own poetic pictorial language, she tells of traumas that have been passed on from generation to generation. Of fractures, of failure, of recognition, and of self-determined complex adulthood. “Fragments” is an ongoing process of reappraisal. And at the same time it seeks to be a confirmation.

ATTILA HARTWIG

Hinter den Toren

On the night of August 2, 1944 – despite bitter resistance – 4,300 Sinti and Roma held captive in the German Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau were murdered by the SS. Stepping away from this year‘s commemoration ceremony, Attila Hartwig took some time to walk the grounds of Auschwitz alone and to let the atmosphere of the place take its effect on him. “Endless fields of clover surround mighty trees that stand against the wind, like witnesses to the past,“ is how he describes the situation. The Nazis planned trees for camouflage against the Allied air forces, and to cover the view of the nearby town of Oświęcim. The Nazi regime cost the lives of 500,000 Sinti and Roma.

SILKE JACOBSEN

Erich

Everything has its season… in nature and in life. Things go, things change, and some things remain. Erich has had a garden in Brandenburg for 51 years now. He turned 80 this year.
Silke Jacobsen

NANCY JESSE

Die Schlange

In Berlin-Wilmersdorf there lives a very strange creature: the Snake. A long housing machine, consisting of over 1,000 apartments, built for a motorised city: the heartbeat of the giant creature is the urban highway that runs straight through the center of the structure. The rumble of the trucks as they plunge into the belly of the Snake, a soft “dum dum, dum dum“ follows residents through long hallways on their way to their apartments built above, along and beside the invisible highway. It’s a surreal feeling: like being in a spaceship from an old science fiction movie. Portrait of a creature.
Nancy Jesse

JÖRG MEIER

Ich bin [ ]

If you google your name, you find yourself – more or less. Jörg Meier has also found many other men with the same name. In his current social portrait series, Meier portrays many of his namesakes. He uses this tiny thread of trust to gain access to a divers set of characters bearing his name, carrying him on a journey through Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. One is not what one is called.

SASKIA REIS

портрет художника
PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST

Saskia Reis portrays artists and creatives from Ukraine now living in exile. In her collage portraits, she combines photography and papercut, incorporating a mixture of backgrounds, overlapping memories, emotions, methods and details from her protagonists’ works. Moments, moods and fragments of divergent encounters become visible. Accompanying the portraits are statements and protocols from the artists – differing stories of creative journeys and of how the war and life in exile is shaping the biographies of those whose future is hanging in the balance.

MICHAEL O’RYAN

Here There Anywhere

A brief family story – past, present and a hint of the future. I release the shutter and the moment is gone, I’ll return to it later to edit the memory. Reflections and refractions remain, to catch the eye, to amuse and to ruminate upon.
Vancouver, Berlin and places between.
Michael O’Ryan

HELEN STEVENS

DINKs

The acronym DINK stands for ”Double Income No Kids“. It is a marketing term, used to classify groups of customers. It describes people who live as a couple but have not started a family. Both are employed creating a double household income. What does this mean in concrete terms? How is such a life lived? Photographer Helen Stevens lives in a DINK relationship. In her series she explores the subject of partnership and a life without children. The classic and socially approved model of life often still assumes that one founds a family in adulthood. What does life look like without this expectation?

TARA WOLFF

Nico

Tara Wolff portrays Nico, a twenty-year-old trans man. Her images show him and his life in his claimed identity. During meals or on walks through the city together, he tells her about his daily life and experiences as a young man. Their regular meetings allow Tara to photograph Nico in intimate moments.

Nov 10 — 13, 2022
Opening Reception: Wednesday, Nov 9, 7 pm
+ Framework program: please see above

f³ – freiraum für fotografie

Waldemarstraße 17 · 10179 Berlin
[District: Mitte | Borough: Mitte]

Opening hours for this exhibition: Wed – Sun 1 – 7 pm

Admission free