The exhibition “THE OTHER. THE OTHERS. ME.” shows work from eight photographic projects created between 2015 and 2017 for Eva Bertram’s FREIE KLASSE at Neue Schule für Fotografie Berlin. A common thread which binds the eight self-chosen projects is the potential for dialogue which exists whilst photographing. The real interaction with the other or others serves primarily to gain insight or knowledge.

A mother with a borderline disorder‘s self-image, feelings, interpersonal relationships are unstable. In her series “Mitten ins Herz”, Maria Blume reconstructs her own memories of childhood experiences with this kind of maternal unpredictability through staged black and white photographs.

“The way I walk” by Michaela Booth shows, in stage-like compositions, the search for special light and the magic inherent in silent observation. The images were taken around Europe and the work is accompanied by a publication.

In “Bittersweet Caramel Chili Chocolate”, Filipino photographer Joseph Chio observed and photographed Neckarstadt-West, the neighbourhood where he lived for two years, which is home to many immigrants and outsiders. In his work, Chio photographed people and their environment, as well as some of the second-hand and cheap goods which are on sale there, often asking himself why these items were so commonly bought and sold, as well as their connection to the wish for a new start.

Hedwig Bollhagen died in 2001. Since 1934 her renowned ceramic workshops in Marwitz had been highly influential, particularly in East Germany. From October 2015 to August 2016, Solveig Faust concerned herself with Bollhagen’s legacy, and how her memory lived on in friends and students, creating a series of portraits and workshop photographs in the project “Marwitz. In der Werkstatt”.

Hengame Hosseini comes from Iran and works as a designer and engineer at an airbag company. In her work “The Immutable Laws of Survial” she applies her working method as an engineer to her own life. Considering herself as both product and product developer, she documents her life and the challenges she deals with in an unsual multimedia installation.

In the series “Intimacy”, Ulrich Kleipaß shows moments of calmness and contemplation. The depicted are alone, but at the same time there is a strong feeling of connection to a possible partner who has perhaps just left the scene or is expected shortly. The photographer’s seemingly unobserved gaze is not voyeuristic, revealing a feeling of trust.

In his series “Nelle mani di Dio”, Michael Peter Kollbach presents the impassioned choreography of contact between the all-male participants in the traditional Easter procession in Trapani, Sicily 2016/17. In highly concentrated compositions, he focuses on the timeless aesthetic of spiritual emotions.

Through images of her son, in “4 – Warum wachsen Menschen automatisch”, photographer Sophia Paeslack approaches the universally direct way children approach and question their surroundings. From the interplay of insatiable curiosity and ignorance of where one is in the world, a unique cosmos arises where every minute is a day and every pine needle is a tree.

June 3 – July 2, 2017
Opening Reception: Friday, June 2, 2017, 7 pm

Neue Schule für Fotografie

Brunnenstraße 188-190, 10119 Berlin
[Mitte | Mitte]

Opening hours: Thu-Sun 1 – 6 pm

Admission free