Wüstungen – geschleifte Orte an der innerdeutschen Grenze
Anne Heinlein und Göran Gnaudschun
The exhibition and book project by Anne Heinlein and Göran Gnaudschun focusses on places along the former inner-German border that were razed to the ground between 1952 and 1988 by order of the East German government. This field includes places that interfered with the free field of fire, were difficult to guard or were too close to the border. Gnaudschun and Heinlein have identified around one hundred isolated settlement areas: from individual farmsteads to entire villages. "Wüstungen" is an artistic exploration of German history that works with documentary material on various levels.
In order to understand why the places were deserted, Heinlein and Gnaudschun researched the historical background in the archives of the Stasi, border troops, the Federal Border Guard and in museums. On the other hand, the artists interviewed contemporary witnesses and searched for symbols in their private photo albums. Many of these documents can be seen in the exhibition.
Göran Gnaudschun's texts in the book, which is being published at the same time, bring together his own experiences at the sites, the stories of former residents and extracts from the files. Anne Heinlein has taken large-format black and white landscape photographs of the places where nothing has been built for decades. Meadows, forests, landscape corners and small areas can be seen in which the viewer can imagine houses, streets and courtyards as if on an empty stage. It appears to be landscape photography, but with the knowledge behind the image, it becomes a space for reflection on the meaning of home and its loss, but also on nature, which reclaims its space unaffected by everything.
Anne Heinlein (1977) and Göran Gnaudschun (1971) were born and live in Potsdam. Both studied fine art under Timm Rautert at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and work in the field of artistic photography. Gnaudschun was recently the centre of attention with his work "Alexanderplatz". He is currently a fellow at the Villa Massimo in Rome. Anne Heinlein has received numerous awards for her work, including the Young Talent Award for Fine Arts of the State of Brandenburg in 2016.
The project was funded by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship.
