I was allowed to have access to the building of the former prisoner of war camp Stalag VII A in Moosburg, Germany, and to develop a photography project there.
The interior of the building as it is today has never been extensively photographed.
The building is currently in danger of being demolished by the city. That is why a photography project that artistically preserves the interior of the building is very important at the moment.

 

 

 

History of the building:

1939 to 1945: One of the largest German prisoner of war camps
1945 to 1948: Allied internment camp for officials of the Third Reich
From 1948: Accommodation for returning refugees from the Eastern regions of the former German Reich
From the 1960s: Apartments for guest workers (Gastarbeiter), e.g. from Turkey, Serbia and Italy

 

Project

Based on my own biography (my father came to Germany as Gastarbeiter from the former Yugoslavia), I want to explore the aspect of guest worker accommodation in the former prisoner of war camp.
I will create diptychs of family photos of the migrant workers and artistic photographs that I took  in 2022 of the now abandoned interior, capturing traces of past life there.

The different layers of time are underlined by the different types of photography.

The selective superimposition of the most diverse historical epochs, individual destinies and the most diverse living motivations (often also involuntarily) that can be found in the Stalag  barracks is what interests me the most artistically and sociologically. With these photography arrngements I want to make the different layers  visible and defoliate them.

Thanks to the Gastarbeiter-Moosburg Archive for letting me use their collected photos of Turkish famlies that used to live in the Stalag buildings.