Haus am Kleistpark

This year, the Haus am Kleistpark Photography Scholarship goes to Mathilde Tijen Hansen. Her project „Schwerbelastungskörper“ (heavy load-bearing body) impressed the five-member jury, consisting of Katia Reich (chair), Andrzej Steinbach, Christin Müller, Mirjana Vrbaški, and Franziska Schmidt.

In „Schwerbelastungskörper,“ Hansen documents the traces of the north-south axis planned for Berlin in 1937. The road, which was supposed to be more than 7 km long and 120 m wide, was a key component of the National Socialists’ representative, ideologically charged urban planning. Taking the eponymous building in Berlin’s Tempelhof-Schöneberg district as a point of departure, the photographer develops a multifaceted image of the urban and social spaces located along the never-realized axis, exploring how it influences the shape of the city to this day. In her series, Hansen combines precise documentary photographs of urban spaces, vacant lots, redensified areas, and zones of transition with sensitive portraits of the people living there today. With her clear black-and-white compositions, Hansen demonstrates how historical urban planning initiatives inform the city structure of Berlin, and Tempelhof-Schöneberg specifically, to our present day, and how photography can serve to join memory, power structures, and everyday life. What is particularly noteworthy is how thoughtfully the artist reflects on photographic models of urban spaces, adding to them her subjective perspective of a present filled with tension.