KOPPELKAMM, Stefan - Ortszeit / Local time, Fotografien 1990-2004

Background information

"After the fall of the wall between the two German states in 1989, a period of economic stagnation offered the opportunity to visit places in eastern Germany where time seemed to have stood still. Stefan KOPPELKAMM, designer, exhibition creator, author and photographer, took advantage of this historic moment to photograph buildings and urban spaces in eastern Berlin and other places in the former GDR whose condition often harked back to the time before World War II. His motives were curiosity about a country largely unknown beyond its borders and the need to preserve in the image a condition that would soon disappear. Between 2001 and 2004, Koppelkamm revisited the same places and photographed their current state once again from the same vantage points.

Content

In the photo volume 'Ortszeit / Local Time' by Stefan KOPPELKAMM, the photographs, taken with a large-format camera, allow a detailed reading of all the traces of time: the dramatic social and economic changes of the last fifteen years become visible. The comparison of the two time periods will differ, depending on the biographical perspective of the viewer. That which seemed foreign to the photographer has been transformed into something seemingly familiar. A viewer who grew up in the photographed environment may experience the opposite. The title 'local time' is to be understood in a figurative sense: 'local time' describes that times apply to different places, which can often differ from the actual time difference between two places by decades or more." (© ed. axel menges, 2006)

Additonal information



About the German photographer, Stefan KOPPELKAMM

Photo books by Stefan KOPPELKAMM