Borders, walls, and the societal processes they generate are an ongoing concern of Carol Chow’s curatorial work. Addressing topics such as division, reunification, migration, identity, and power, her exhibition projects reveal political and societal dynamics in thoughtful, sensitive, and insightful ways.

In 2019, Chow curated the The Wall 2019 group show in Hong Kong, inviting 12 local artists to create works that reflect various kinds of walls that facilitate or block human progress and societal development at the junction of the 100th anniversary of May 4th Movement, 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the 30th anniversary of the democracy movement in different countries, amongst them China and East Germany. The title is inspired by the eponymous Pink Floyd album and Alan Parker movie, in which the wall acts as a metaphor of defense against various institutional violence, be it familial, educational, or military. In fact, a wall can at once defend and divide, protect and exclude.

Building upon this 2019 exhibition, Chow’s latest exhibition, presented at SomoS, is titled The Wall – Union or Divide. The interdisciplinary group exhibition extends the wall theme to an examination of the complexities of emotions and realities underneath the political reunion of Hong Kong and China, and that of West and East Germany.

Despite the difference in sovereignty, both reunifications share similar nature of the collision of capitalism and communism as well as that of democracy and authoritarianism. The ethnic, cultural, and historical connection and the contesting ideological forces work in tandem in the post-unification era, resulting in the erection of new visible and invisible walls and frictions.

In its juxtaposition of Hong Kong and German artists’ work tackling the wall metaphor, The Wall: Reunion or Divide is expected to further fruitful dialogs.

Walls protect and divide. They act as frontiers of power with various control mechanisms, especially when built as political and ideological borders. However, does the fall of a wall really signify freedom? Perhaps different forms of invisible walls are always present, hindering unity within and beyond nations? What constitutes real freedom? How can togetherness that embraces differences be realized when power is always at play with its insidious disguises?

The political reunion of Hong Kong and China, as well as that of West and East Germany, provides a fantastic backdrop for us to examine these questions. Despite the political reunification and removal of “walls” of various kinds, the people of both countries do not come together as “we.” Us/Others still prevail within the “united” nation-state. The Wall features 14 artistic positions from mainly German and Hong Kong artists that respond directly or indirectly to the issue.

Both featuring an overwhelming presence of bricks, Yim Sui Fong’s video Quotation explores how people remain imprisoned in the mental wall constructed by Maoism even forty years after Mao’s death, while South Ho Siu Nam’s Defense and Resistance performance-photography uses bricks “made in Hong Kong” to retain its autonomy and agency from the escalating forces of oppression. Such “will” finally took the street as its stage. The haunting, panoramic images of Vincent Yu Wai Kin’s (In)visible Wall show a vivid picture of the contesting forces from the past to the present that shape Hong Kong, while the gloomy black and white images of Jimmi Ho Wing Ka’s So Close and Yet portray a very similar picture via the border between Hong Kong and Mainland China.

Resistance involves strong will but also emotions such as loss, despair, and even hatred. Tobias Kruse’s Deponie and Eric Meier’s THOR invariably involve the idea of “abjection” to explore the frustrations and the right-wing sentiment amongst Eastern Germans and its linkage to the Nazi past in post-reunification Germany. Meier’s melted beer mugs glass installation Goodbye Deutschland further explores the sense of loss and vulnerability of the life of the precarious and those who migrate for a better alternative, often in vain. Such sentiment is echoed by Lam Chun Tung’s Goodbye Hong Kong, the image of an iconic floating restaurant forced to leave the once glamourous city and its flamboyant past, just like the new wave of Hong Kong emigrants or even the values carried within the place and the people.

Does history repeat itself? Herbert W.H. Hundrich’s A Thin Red Line neon-strip installation and Lam Wai Kit’s Which Things Were (Are) Allowed And Which Were (Are) Not self-spying image-text vividly manifest the co-operation of “discipline blockage” and “discipline mechanism” in a totalitarian regime. -When the red lines are ubiquitous, and nothing is right, subtle coercion is an inevitable outcome. As a result, humans submerge into the abyss of distrust, and people are never truly “people.”

Hartmut Jahn’s experimental video Double Germany Fantasy and the cinemascope film Berliner Blau, co-directed with Peter Wensierski, while depicting rather drastic differences in life on both sides of the Wall, nevertheless suggest a Utopian vision of unity. One not so much constructed by a homogenized, collective body but through creative and social democracy in which individuality, heterogeneity, and diversity constitute society. In fact, as the divide after post-German reunification evinces, history should not end with the transition from communism to the often linked pairs of democratic-capitalist systems. A binary thinking and simplistic assemblage of communism/authoritarianism on the one hand and capitalism/democracy on the other may obscure the problems underlying societies and social conflicts. Lee Chun Fung’s mockumentary Boundaries, which interweaves the Wall element and the division of East and West Germany in both pre and post-unification eras with the political negotiation between Hong Kong, the People’s Republic of China, and the colonial forces, suggests how history and societies are always shaped by complicated and intersecting political-economic and socio-cultural forces at local, national, and transnational levels.

Globalization marked by intensive flows of people, commodities, capital, and technology definitely does not flatten the earth, though time and space are undoubtedly compressed. Disjunctures still exist. An investigation of the metaphor of the Wall in the globalization era necessitates the unfolding of dissonances and multifarious voices masked by the veil of increasing connectivity and cultural convergence. Interviewing native and migrant islanders of different nationalities and religious and political beliefs, Lo Yin Shan and Anthony McHugh’s Driving Lantau – Whisper of an Island, a video diary 1998-2003/2011 reveals the untold, contradictory, and suppressed Hong Kong stories through the lens of an allegorical outlying island. More importantly, the story is perhaps also a reiteration of the eternal truth that no man is an island. Ethnicities, gender, religious, and even political differences are not necessarily conflictual when working in tandem.

Dialog, or more specifically, communication, is integral to the fostering of communities within and across cultures. The photography and audio work What time is it now by Dorothy Wong Ka Chun and Benjamin Ryser (O!sland) and their accompanying artist-guided tour link Hong Kong and German histories through the intertwining of personal and social memories in public spaces, such as memorials and parks. Public spaces are sites where public life can come into place, parks are spaces where boundaries can easily be transcended through play, minds and bodies can be liberated, and hopes and dreams can be fostered.

The dialog will end with the screening of Hartmut Jahn’s video Counterpart Hong Kong and Choi Bin Chuen’s work Every time I am back in Hong Kong, I gain 9 kilos shot in 1989 and 1997, respectively, -two significant years in both Germany and Hong Kong’s histories. More than three decades have passed, and it is time to ask not only what time it is now in terms of history writing, but also where we are now on the path of the revolution of social democracy.

Shortly before Hong Kong’s handover to Mainland China, I flew there again. I thought my homeland would not be the same as I once knew it after the handover. Shortly after my arrival, I found many once familiar things estranged. I looked at the city from a different perspective. My extended stay in Germany has alienated me from my homeland. My memory of Hong Kong has become vague, making me wonder whether I ever really knew it. Instead of documenting the handover of Hong Kong as initially planned, I decided to keep a video diary of my subjective observations during my stay.

Note: Every time I am back in Hong Kong, I gain 9 kilos will be presented by the artist personally as part of the films screening & discussion on August 6^th, 7-8 pm.

Choi Bin Chuen was born in Hong Kong in 1967 and has been living in Germany since 1989. He is an artist and filmmaker. He studied Fine Arts as well as experimental film at the Universität der Künste of Berlin. He has received various scholarships such as “Nachwuchsförderung Berlin” and “Junge Akademie” from the Academy of the Arts Berlin. His 2002 short documentary “Old Choi’s Film” won the 3sat Promotional Award at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the German Short Film Award.

So Close and Yet is the first chapter of my project So close yet so far away, which originates from the contemplation of self-identity, exploring the relationship between memory and identity. It is a series of conversations among Hong Kong people about the history and future of the city and the social-political environment.

So Close and Yet tells mainly about the border and politics leftover from the undeniable Sino-British history, which became the inseparable relationship between the two cities. I tried to capture the portrayal and metaphors of daily life. The image is in a peaceful state, but hidden behind Hong Kong society, it is experiencing a complex tension and political environment.

Wing Ka Ho Jimmi (b. 1993) is a photographer based in Hong Kong and the UK. His works document historical landscapes and portraits in the community, investigating the political issues and social changes. His latest project, ‘So close and yet so far away,’ documents Hong Kong society through diverse personal identities and geographic locations. He executed his vision to address immigration issues related to political change and the social environment in Hong Kong. His works have been published in the Guardian, Lensculture, and presented at many photography festivals such as Kyotographie, Hong Kong International Photography Festival(HKIPF).

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Surrounded by a brick wall that I built in the noblest area in Hong Kong, West Kowloon, I expressed the confrontation between Hong Kong people and tourists from Mainland China in recent years. A wall is built to resist the invasion of others and defend one’s own interest; yet, a wall of a loose structure is an encumbrance that is contradictory to its original intent. The work reflects the contradiction in Hong Kong after the return of sovereignty to China.

Born in 1984, Ho is 4th generation Hongkongese. The photographer graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and obtained his Higher Diploma in Social Work in 2006. Ho has worked for various magazines (as editor and photographer). He now focuses on Photography (especially black and white) and is involved in writing as well. He loves discovering various photographic subjects from society in order to express his viewpoints on existence. Ho participated in various photography exhibitions since 2007. In 2008, he took part in the “Imaging Hong Kong Contemporary Photography Exhibition,” a major photography exhibition in Hong Kong. His photographic series “Into Light” was awarded the “Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Award 2009” and was adopted as a collection by The Burger Collection, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, and the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan. His personal studio was established in 2008. In 2013, he co-founded “100 ft. PARK,” a non-commercial art space dedicated to providing an open platform for exhibiting and sharing art.
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Jumbo Floating Restaurant, a Chinese imperial palace-style eatery that opened in the 1970s, finally left Hong Kong in 2022 as a result of huge financial loss owed partly to the city’s social movement in 2019 and partly to the pandemic afterwards. Being a luxurious restaurant that many international and local celebrities including Queen Elizabeth II and Tom Cruise have visited, and film sets for local and Hollywood movies such as God of Cookery and Contagion, Jumbo Restaurant is deemed as a significant historical icon that symbolized Hong Kong’s flamboyant past. Its departure has stirred another wave of nostalgic feelings amongst many Hong Kong people, whilst the final sinking of the boat, and hence a disappearance that resonates with many others, was touted as a metaphor for the death of the city.

Lam Chun Tung was born in Hong Kong in 1978. He started his career as a photojournalist in 2000. He has worked in the Sun, Mingpao, AM730, HK01 and currently works for Initium Media. Between 2011 and 2012, Lam has served as Chairman of the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association. He has won numerous honors for his work including the Best Photograph Award of the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong; Merits (Photo Categories), the Human Rights Press Awards; Excellence in News Photography and Feature Photography of the SOPA Awards; and prizes in the “Focus at the Frontline” organized by the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association. Apart from his photojournalistic work, Lam has collaborated with different NGOs such as Unison and the Society for Community Organization to produce photography projects on the underprivileged, including the elderly, ethnic minorities women, and prisoners. He is now devoted to documenting social and political issues in Hong Kong while exploring personal photo projects.

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Which Things Were (Are) Allowed And Which Were (Are) Not – Version 2022 is a project revision with the same title I created in 2014. The first version was done after visiting the Stasi Museum, the former grounds of the German Democratic Republic Ministry for State Security (MfS) headquarters. The museum presents evidence of how the German Democratic Republic controlled all aspects of life. I borrowed the concept of surveillance and created a “self-spying” series. I questioned the notion of what is allowed and what is not. In 2022, I reexamined the above notion, but not merely about how we are shaped by ideology. After eight years, this new revision also depicted the emotions of the political unrest and the pandemic’s consequences that we ought to confront.

Born in Hong Kong in 1966, Lam Wai Kit graduated with an MFA from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2003) and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, UK (1996). Her research topics comprise identity, human vulnerability, intimacy, and the interrelationship between individuals and the surrounding circumstances. Her topics include consequences and conflicts that shape our identity and representation. Her media included photography, video art, text, sound, and installation.
Awards & grants Lam received include “IX Certamen de Artes Plásticas Dijous Bo”, Inca, Spain (2018); “Second award: III Certamen d’Arts Plàstiques Ciutat de Felanitx 2017”, Felanitx, Spain (2017); “Centre d’Art i Creació de Ses Voltes”, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2016); “Fundación Valparaíso”, Mojácar, Spain (2011); “Artists in the Neighbourhood Scheme IV” & “Visual Artist-in-Residence Programmes”, Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2009); “The 8th Hong Kong Independent Short Film and Video Awards (IFVA)” (2003); “Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards” (2009 & 1998).

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This story begins with a parallel world proposed by the British government during the negotiation of Hong Kong’s future in the early 1980s . . .

When the British government started to negotiate the future of Hong Kong with the Chinese government, the Chinese government has shown persistence and insisted on reclaiming Hong Kong’s sovereignty. Considering the long-term interests that the British had invested in Hong Kong, they strongly advocated the validity of the three treaties, that is, according to the Treaty of Nanking and Treaty of Peking, the British own the sovereignty of Hong Kong Island as well as Kowloon Peninsula; while New Territories has been on lease for 99 years in the Second Convention of Peking and shall be returned to China in 1997. In order to show confidence to the Chinese government, the British government proposed to build the Hong Kong Wall at the boundary between the New Territories and Kowloon, which imitated the Berlin Wall in Germany. In this circumstance, Hong Kong would be divided into northern and southern, as an assurance to the British to retain their last “Far East colony” after 1997.

This video depicts the possible development of Hong Kong society as if the wall was built. Within this allegory, the wall serves not only as a physical division, but contributes to constructing or re-articulating the identity of the Hong Kong people, which is influenced by various ideological, political, and economic agendas. By reviewing this alternative history, I hope to explore the uniqueness of Hong Kong.

Lee Chun Fung (b. 1982) is an artist, curator, and researcher based in Hong Kong. His research interests cover self-organized art practices, grassroots activism, and the politics of aesthetics in an inter-Asian context. He is the co-founder of community/art space “Woofer Ten” (2009 – 2015) and the research collective “Inter-Asia Woodcut Mapping Group” (2019 – ongoing). His video work Boundaries (2019) has been screened in Hong Kong, Taipei, Naha, Seoul, Jeju, Kuala Lumpur, and Leipzig.

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The one-year documentation (1998-1999) was triggered by the construction of Chek Lap Kok International Airport and its infrastructure all linked to Lantau Island. The new airport designed by our colonial architect Norman Foster was a part of the mega-program named the ‘Rose Garden Project’, by which the colonial government tried to restore confidence among Hongkongers after ’89 Tiananmen.
Having the outer-island recorded as a metaphor of (disappearing) Hong Kong but in a hybrid narrative, the video (DVD) was complemented with a book and published in 2011. From March to August, 2022, Driving Lantau was supposed to be part of the screening program of Mediatheque at the newly open M+, unfortunately, it is held by the OFNAA (Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration) “under reviewing” as the official would not like to use the term: censorship. Since then, a docu-diary made more than twenty years ago has become a “banned item” in the so-called “New Hong Kong.”

Lo Yin Shan
Born in Hong Kong 1969, Lo was a Polytechnic student who participated in the ‘fax the news to China’ action in 1989, then wandering around Europe and the Post-Eastern Bloc cities, Prague, Budapest, Leipzig, and East Berlin from 1991-92. While as an independent journalist based in Beijing (2008-2017), Lo was often asked by Hong Kong editors for June 4 anniversary features.

Anthony McHugh
Anthony McHugh, a Mancunian with Irish blood moved to Hong Kong at the end of 1980s. While as the assignment photographer for Shanghai Tang and brands in the 90s, he was also an early eco-farmer and recycle-woodwork maker on the Island. After the trauma of living with cancer, he is now a permanent Brit-Hongkonger living in one of the public housing estates.

After Hong Kong’s 2019 democracy movement, Dorothy and Benjamin started an ongoing project about the imaginations of home of Hongkongers who left their city during the different migration waves of the past decades.

This work features stories from the way home in Berlin and Hong Kong. It’s a part of an ongoing search for street corners, moments in time, and personal memories where these two cities touch and their histories speak to each other. What is belonging when we lose the sense of home? These stories are not only crossing geographically, but also travel between times and generations. How do the experiences of the German separation resonate with Hong Kong’s future?

World clocks that connected the metropolis, arriving at Brandenburger Tor, Victoria/Viktoria/維多利亞 statues, searching for a playground that you’ve been to when we were small, the childhood memories of escaping from a basement, what time is it over there?

*special thanks to Gloria, Mr. Veigel, Ho Hin Chan

Dorothy WONG Ka Chung and Benjamin Ryser (o!sland) are an artist duo from Hong Kong and Switzerland; their socially engaged art projects bring media art and sound art into local contexts. They collaborate with different communities worldwide and use images, videos, sound, text, and stories to show current society and politics from a personal perspective. Their research focuses on experiences of colonization, belonging and displacement, the shifting of identities, and the experience of distance. They have realized projects with the Truku indigenous people in Taiwan, a community of immigrants in Zurich, and Hongkongers in different countries. They try to find places outside traditional art spaces, where images, videos, and sounds can settle in and belong; their works aim to reshape the meaning of those places as well as the relationship between the project participants. Examples are family albums, forgotten by time in an attic, radios hanging in the middle of a field, a photo/audio book guiding you through the streets of a city, and memories in people’s hearts.

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The fallen Berlin Wall in 1989 and the invisible walls inside Hong Kong people’s minds share a fatalistic connection. “The end of history” has become a joke…
1984, 1949, 1989, 1997, 2047, all these four-digits numbers have turned from metaphors to spells…

Fate is not contingent on coincidence but pre-determined, and destiny seems to have accelerated its speed. The current of eternal return has brought history once again to the people struggling between remembering and forgetting. -Is escape still possible when fear has encapsulated everyday life? Perhaps, only remembering the past can help to confront dire forebodings.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Vincent Yu (1965) has worked as a photojournalist covering major news events across the Asia-Pacific region since 1985. As a close observer of Hong Kong’s rapid development, Yu has acquired a special sensitivity toward its ever-changing cityscape. In particular, he is interested in documenting disappearing heritage and architecture as well as communities affected by these changes.
Yu’s works have been recognized by many honors, including the 2004 National Headliner Awards, 2010 World Press Photo Awards 3rd Prize “People in the News” single category, 2013 Picture of the Year Awards Award of Excellence “Photographer of the Year,“ and numerous Hong Kong Press Photographers Association Annual Awards. His works are collected by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

Quotation originated from a newspaper clipping album that categorizes the People’s Daily clipping of Mao Zedong after his death in 1976. I use the narrative style from the album, taking a conscious seemingly like a requiem to deconstruct another ideology, to problematize and to rethink the meaning of mourning.

Yim Sui Fong (born in 1982) is an artist based in Hong Kong, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) graduate from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is the co-founder of the artist-run organization Rooftop Institute and a member of the Hong Kong artists’ collective, L sub.

Through using mediums such as photography, video, sound, performance and installation, the artist probes the dynamics between individuality and collectivity. While she explores individual unease in social contexts, she is equally a keen practitioner of examining the potential of people in the group through artistic actions.

Yim received the Award for Young Artist (Visual Arts) from Hong Kong Development Council (2019/2020), WMA Masters Award (2017/18) from the WYNG Foundation. Her book project The man who attends to the times’ commissioned by Oi!, Hong Kong (2018). Recent exhibitions include: Emo Gym, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2022), The Body and The City, Goethe Institute, Hong Kong (2021), Can’t Touch This, WMA Space, Hong Kong (2021), Otherworlds:non/digital realities, Gillman Barracks, Singapore Art Week, Singapore (2021), Landskrona Foto Festival, Landskrona Art Gallery, Sweden (2020), Artists’ Film International, Whitechapel Gallery (2019), A Room of Resistance, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Hong Kong (2019).

In the video A Double German Fantasy, Hartmut Jahn uses an experimental editing method, combining historical archives, and fictional narratives through the trope of identical twins -one representing West Germany and the other one East to examine the journey Germany went through after the war, and in particular, the illusory nature of politics as exemplified by the collapse of the fake wall at the ending.

The work represents the desire towards the re-unification of a split nation that was ruled by two different systems at the time. Through creative montage, the video also puts the continuity and discontinuity of history and space in question through fragmentary threads of ideological connection.

Hartmut Jahn, born 1955, is a German media artist. His work deals with aspects of German history and social issues in a media-reflexive way on different levels: using fiction, documentary, and experimental-deconstructive formats. Jahn works as an artist and a specialist in digital transformation in time-based media.

From 1998 through 2021, Jahn was a full professor for film and video story-telling and realization at the School of Design, Hochschule Mainz – University of Applied Sciences, running the Media Design Institute as speaker and executive director of this research institution from 2011 until January 2021. Hartmut Jahn is a member of the German Film Academy.

Originally rooted in an experimental video art and film context, Hartmut Jahn’s work has been shown and awarded at several international film festivals. He has held screenings at Tate Modern and the LUX in London, the Museum of Modern Art (German Films) in New York, and the Hong Kong Arts Centre, amongst others. His work has been nominated for the German Film Prize and won Best European Short Film at the Cork Intl. Film Festival, Ireland and the Golden Gate Award, San Francisco Intl. Film Festival 1994, U.S.A. and the German Video Art Award of the ZKM Karlsruhe.

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The cinemascope-film “Berliner Blau” contains assorted performances by artists of different nationalities in front of the colorful Berlin Wall covered with graffiti, political slogans, and jokes. With the use of various art forms ranging from opera, provocative or Duchampian satirical happenings, to street art, montage editing of the performances, and historical archives, as well as experimental music; the film presents the Fluxus spirit of creative democracy which emphasizes inclusiveness, diversity, and boundary crossing, and the associated Utopian vision of coexistence of individuality and human solidarity.

Peter Wensierski, born in 1954 in Heiligenhaus, Germany is a German author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker.

After studying journalism, politics and history in Berlin, he worked from 1979 as the youngest Western travel correspondent in the GDR. In 1985, the GDR government banned him from working and entering the country. During his work as a correspondent in the GDR, he published numerous reports, books and documentaries on, among others, the opposition movement in the churches, among the youth, and in artistic and intellectual circles. From 1986 Wensierski was an editor at the German TV-magazine Kontraste (ARD). In 1993 he moved to the Germany editorial department of Der Spiegel.

He is also known for his books including Schläge im Namen des Herrn and documentaries on television as well as for his collaboration with Hartmut Jahn on the films Berliner Blau, Transitträume and Schwerter zu Pflugscharen (1982-1986).

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Deponie (Landfill) refers to the toxic-waste dump near the city of Schwerin where the artist grew up. The series is not only a journey dealing with the artist’s adolescence as a former East German in united Germany, but also an exploration of those feelings of fear, anger and aggression in contemporary East German society, and the country’s Nazi past and present.

Berlin-based Photographer Tobias Kruse works worldwide on personal artistic projects as well as on assignments for magazines, institutions, and private commissions. Kruse was born in Mecklenburg, Northeast Germany in 1979, where he also spent his youth. At the age of 20, he moved to Berlin and worked as a graphic designer for a couple of years. From 2005 till 2007 he studied photography at Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie with Prof. Ute Mahler and attended the Masterclass of Prof. Arno Fischer from 2008 till 2009. He joined the photographer’s agency Ostkreuz in march 2011. Since 2017 Tobias teaches photography at Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie.

Together with the other OSTKREUZ members, he worked on projects like “24h Berlin” and “On Borders” that were exhibited in renowned galleries like C/O Berlin, Deutsches Hygiene Museum or Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Furthermore, he exhibited both collectively and individually two times at the New York Photo Festival, in the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and at the Photo festival Hannover and in numerous other galleries in Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland. He was nominated for the Prix Voies Off in Arles, France in 2007, mentioned honorably at Leads Awards in the category “Reportage Photography” and at the Epson Art Photo Award both in 2008. In that year, he won the New York Photo Award in the category “Student Editorial Series”. Additionally, he was the winner of the International Photo Festival F/Stop 2010 in Leipzig, Germany.
Tobias Kruse has worked for magazines and newspapers such as Der Spiegel, Tagesanzeiger Magazin, Zeit Magazine, Dummy, Neon, Die Zeit, die tageszeitung and Weltwoche. Moreover, Steidl, powerHouse Books, and Hatje Cantz published his photographs as books accompanying his exhibition.

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The work of 12 photographs THOR depicts multi-purpose garage constructions in East-Germany which had been built in GDR times by thousands near housing complexes.
The rotten and apparently deserted architecture has clearly kept its functionality. The gates have been protected with new locks, hinges and fittings. The artist not only shows us the sometimes funny world of the kleiner Mann(who makes things worse by attempting to improve them), but also questions present and past, inside and outside and the seemingly typi- cal (East) German fear of loss (German angst).
The picture of the garages has a political reference: THOR also means ”Thor Steinar” the widespread Neo-Nazi clothing company from Königs Wusterhausen, and at the same time refers to the abuse of Germanic mythology by the Nazis, which perverted them as ”primordial German high culture” further more the NSU used such buildings for conspiracy and the assembling of bombs.

The deformed beer mugs can be shown in different variations but originate from the installation ”Goodbye Deutschland”, which included one hundred glass objects. The mugs are symbolic of the cliché of a lively German ”beer nation”, but on the other hand they also refer to the dark sides of alcohol consumption and social precarity. This metaphorical connotation runs through the artist‘s practice and at the same time establishes references to a social dimension. An anthropomorphic gesture is inscribed in the shape of the glasses, which are deformed at 700 degrees celsius. Thus the works, through their „limpness“ symbolize a humorous tragedy, reminiscent of the wavering persons of the 1990s escapism drowned in alcohol.

Eric Meier (born in 1989 East Berlin, GDR), grew up in Frankfurt an der Oder and currently lives in Berlin. From 2010–2012, Meier studied at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie, and from 2012–2018 at the Academy for Visual Arts Leipzig (HGB), 2016-2017 at UDK Berlin. In 2018, he graduated from HGB Leipzig and was Meisterschüler with Prof. Heidi Specker in 2019. Meier was awarded a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation.

Selected solo shows: St.Marien-Kirche, Frankfurt(Oder), Germany, 2021, MOUNTAINS, Berlin, Germany (2019); Valletta Contemporary, Valletta, Malta (2019, cat.); Fructa Space, Munich, Germany (2018); Aperto Raum, Berlin (2017, cat.), Germany. Selected group shows: Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany (2022); Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig, Germany (2021); Goethe Institut, Paris, France (2019); Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne, Germany (2019); Gussglashalle, Berlin, Germany (2019); Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin, Germany (2018/2019); Halle 14 – Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany (2018); Kunsthalle Perleberg, Perleberg, Germany (2017); fotopub Festival, Novo Mesto, Slovenia (2017); Eric Meier’s work is represented in the Collection Hoffmann, Berlin; the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as other private and corporate collections. He co-founded and from 2015-2017 co-organized the artist run exhibition space KASKL in Berlin.

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What is right? What is wrong? Where does responsibility begin? What separates good from evil? The project “the thin red line” is dedicated to the moment of decision, exactly the moment when we realize – no matter how or what we decide, it is wrong.
Not even because it is really wrong, but – because there is no right. There are moments when even doing nothing is difficult or almost impossible to bear, moments when the innocent becomes guilty.

Our thinking determines our words. Our words our decisions. And our choices determine our entire lives. Decisions are made in the present and the present lasts 3 seconds.

And then again, it is “the red line” that separates the worlds, divides nations, takes philosophy to its limits, bitterly opposes religions and faith communities, declares those who think differently to be the enemy, tears families apart and drives too many people over the edge.

What … is the common thing that divides us?
The feeling, the conviction – to be on the right side of “the thin red line.”

Herbert W.H. Hundrich is a multidisciplinary artist born in 1951, in Wittmund (Germany). Since 1981 the artist has worked as a freelancer, living in France and Spain; before settling in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany) in 2007. Over the years Hundrich has developed long-term art projects in Germany and abroad, working in the USA, India, Nepal, Ladakh, and the Republic of Seychelles.
Hundrich is active in public art, sculpture, drawing, and film; and imbues his works with a socially, ecologically and spiritually aware sensibility. He participated in integration workshops with refugees and young people from Palestine, Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Germany; as well as manifestations for Democracy, Human Rights, and the reunification of Germany.

Important projects include: 2000, Presscenter, German Pavillon, Norddeutsche Landesbank; 2001- 2005, Loans to the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany for the artistic design of the Embassy of the Federal Republic in Madrid, Spain; 2014, „the thin red line“; 2016 – 2018, artistic design of 3 floors, ZAG Hannover; 2018, „iLlegal housings“ Architecture Venice Biennale Venice. European Culture Centre; 2019, participation in the WATER EVENT by Yoko Ono, Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig; 2020 -21, W.I.R.; 5 churches project, curator/concept, international exhibition project MV, Germany / 2021 „the ocean begins under your feet I,“ 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, European Cultural Centre, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany / 2022, experimental video.

Herbert W.H Hundrich was awarded with 2018 / 20/21 Artist in Residence, Palmyra Sculpture Garden, Islas Baleares, Spain; 1990 New Art Program, Kutztown, P.A., USA; 1989 Yellow Springs Institute, Chesterfield, P.A.,USA; 1986 Mac Dowell Colony, Peterborough, N.H., USA ; 1985 Cité International des Arts, Paris – Land Niedersachsen. His work is represented in the collections of John Flaxman Livrary, Art Insitute Chicago, USA ; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA; Chateau de Lesvault, France; Palmyra Sculpture Parc, Spain; Stadt Hannover; Stadt Bergen; Assoziazione Venice Calls, Italy; and more.

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Carol Chow is an independent curator and researcher. She received her Ph.D. in Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Master of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University. With training in philosophy, communication and visual arts (specialized in photography), she is dedicated to producing curatorial work with criticality by interrogating identity issues and the circulation and reproduction of power underpinning various forms of social relations and practices. Her curations “Voice of Tacitness: Asian Women Photography Exhibition” (2013 Liangzhou International Photography Festival 2013), “A Room with a View: Her-HongKong-stories through the Lens of Six Female Photographers” (Singapore International Photography Festival 2016), “Who Cares: Photovoice of Female Mainland Immigrants in Hong Kong” (2021) address gender inequality and the othering of female voice in historical narration. “The Wall 2019” (2019), “Pharmakon” (2021) and “Beijing_Kilometers” (2021) scrutinize the interplay of Hong Kong’s political subjectivity with the complex geopolitical and cultural-historical forces.