“What are you feeling right now?” – This is the question photographer Bettina Flitner from Cologne asks various people from East and West Germany in 1990, as she visits the fallow border strip that once divided Berlin. Almost 25 years later, she explored the former “socialist model village” in Mestlin, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, guided by the question “What does the GDR mean to you?”.
The result is two photo reportages, that presented for the first time the tense period of upheaval in East Germany since 1989. About 60 of Flitner’s photographs are shown at the Museum in der Kulturbrauerei. Black and white on the one side, colors on the other; city scenes here, landscape views there: At first sight, the two features seem to be contradictory.
The binding element is Bettina Flitner’s approach. Both projects unite compositions and quotations in a sensitive, individual way and with respect for the portrayed. She looks for upheavals, contradictions and impressions, letting them appear in their proper light. Every work focusses on the human being.
Their responses to Flitner’s questions “What is to come?“ and “What remains?” show joy, frustration, indifference, consternation, fears, hopes and disappointments. In this way, deep insights are being created into the attitude to life in East Germany since the end of the GDR.
An English translation of the answers can be accessed via QR code in our exhibition.
Insights
