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Last Saturday we personally presented our Open Air exhibition as part of our project “Suhl-Nord – In discussion again” to all interested people.
Where once many people lived in prefab buildings, the 15 construction fence tarps now offer a place in Public Space for Remembrance and Conversation on the current state after the great Transformation, which the residential area has undergone. We hope they stand for a long time and spark a conversation or two. The project is supported by Fonds Soziokultur and Heidehof Stiftung.
All content is from the newspaper, which you can order at www.suhl-nord.de or view online. In fall, we plan to create a second edition in a new workshop. We would like to take a closer look at why Suhl Nord has developed the way it has, and what the future could look like. If you are interested in participating, feel free to get in touch already – or subscribe to our newsletter.

Since 16.3. the large format photographs of the exhibition »Komplex : Heimat« by Frieder are hanging in the castle and city museum of Hoyerswerda – hand printed in 80×100 by Barbara Thiel and in great wooden frames by Isaak Broder.

Frieder’s images are accompanied by a text booklet that provides context for all the photos and points out connections to other events. As mentioned in the last newsletter, the topic is how Saxon identities are constructed.

You can view the exhibition until April 17. For the finissage we have come up with something special: on Sunday, April 16 at 3 p.m. we invite you to join us in a conversation over coffee and cake. Please register by April 13 at 03571-20 937 500 or info@museum-hy.de if you would like to participate. UPDATE: canceled due to a lack of registered participants

For those who can’t make it to Hoyerswerda or who already want to get an impression, you can find the photographs in small format and the texts on our website. Also if you want to buy a C-print (edition 2 + 1 AP), you will find the information there.

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The date for the opening of the open-air exhibition on Suhl-Nord is now fixed. On 13 May from 16 o’clock we will meet in our rooms in the medical center Suhl-North. Then we will go together to the surrounding abandoned areas, where thousands of people used to live in the apartment blocks. We show pictures and texts from the newspaper “Suhl-Nord – From our point of view” on construction fence tarps there.

On June 15, starting at 6 p.m., Rafael will also present the project in the former plenary hall of the New City Hall in Suhl. The event is part of the supporting program for the opening of the well-travelled touring exhibition “Two German Architectures 1949-1989”, which will probably remain in Suhl at least until the end of the year.

“We Saxons, we are bright, the whole world knows that! And if we are not bright, then we have pretended”, so says an old Saxon proverb. Where does the still widespread idea come from that the Saxons are different or even better? Why does it need that? What does it mean for coexistence if we repeatedly distinguish ourselves from “the others”? Who is involved in the construction of Saxon identities? (more…)

Already on the 30th of November of the year that has come to an end, Carlotta, Frieder and Rafael, together with the five participants of the workshop in the Suhl-Nord project, were able to present the newspaper that was created in the process – many thanks to the band without a name that spiced up the evening. The Kulturbaustelle Suhl was filled almost to the last seat and since a report in the local newspaper Freies Wort many more people asked for a newspaper there. And although we should have put a newspaper in the mailbox of all residents of Suhl-Nord, even now, on sunny days, several copies are still going away in front of our office. But we were also thrilled how motivated all participants stayed with the project and that we created such an exciting print product with so many different photographic and textual approaches in such a short time together. Big thanks also to Büro 222, who put the finishing touches on the layout. (more…)

Those who have known us for a long time may remember the project »City Plaza – Story of an Appropriation«. From 2016 to 2019, up to 400 refugees, local activists and international volunteers lived together in a former hotel in Athens. During several visits, Frieder photographed residents and rooms of the house with a large-format camera. At the same time, together with Xiafou Wang and Claude Somot, he distributed point-and-shoot cameras to residents, who used them to document their everyday lives. From the collection of over 7000 photographs as well as interviews and texts from other participants, Frieder is now working on a photo book – accompanied by many photo book experts in a year-long program organized by Brad Feuerhelm of “Nearest Truth”. At the end he will search for a publisher with a so-called dummy!

In the late summer of 2021, a new migration route emerged via Belarus, through which a comparatively large number of people attempted to reach the EU and were prevented from doing so in a very violent manner. Politically and medially, they were too often portrayed as a threat or as anonymous victims. With our newspaper »KEINE RUHE« we want to show them as human beings.

This week we will go on a small reading tour with it. We will read from the four interviews and talk with Muhannad, who himself came to Germany via Belarus, about current developments and about what we can do for a humane reception for all. All events will take place in German and Arabic.
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A lot has happened in our Suhl-Nord project. In July we had invited to a street party in front of our association room. We were happy how many former and current residents came to our first event and how much positive feedback we got. There were small workshops, food and drinks and most of all many conversations, all thanks to the support of other associations, interpreters and helpers and the funding by the Fonds Soziokultur and the Heidehof Stiftung.
At the beginning of September, we also started our newspaper workshop. We are having a lot of fun ourselves talking about the district and photography with the emerging group, eating pizza and taking pictures together. In the meantime, we have already met for a second weekend and everyone has their own ideas about how they want to explore Suhl-Nord with photos, texts, interviews, maps, objects and more. Partly we also work with the pictures and stories that other residents have already brought to us or sent us by mail.
One of these neighbors suddenly came into the workshop at the last meeting and asked if we already had such a newspaper ready. Unfortunately, we had to put her off until the end of the year, but it was nice to hear that the result is already awaited!

Last year we opened a second unofficial.pictures room in Suhl-Nord. As a child, Rafael had already lived in this prefabricated housing area, which is to be almost completely demolished due to population decline. Unfortunately, the remaining residents were barely included in this process. In addition, the “baseball bat years” have not been dealt with and there is still a lot of racism towards the migrant neighbors who moved here in recent years. Even our multilingual posters have already been covered with werhmacht-glorifying stickers or even been torn down. In the rest of the city, on the other hand, the neighborhood is often associated with classist prejudices or only “the right-wingers” are seen. Many have already given up on the neighborhood.
This summer, thanks to a grant from the Fonds Soziokultur, we can now become active in Suhl-Nord and want to try what we are quite good at – bringing people from different backgrounds into an exchange about their different perspectives with the help of photography. (more…)