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Last month, I published a piece for Wired.com about Philipp Lohöfener‘s photographs from the Stasi Prison Museum in Berlin.
I make the point that “the prison has been the subject for other photographers including Martin Roemers, Daniel & Geo Fuchs and Daniel Etter, but Lohoefener’s work is the most cohesive essay in describing the cold horror of the site.”
I am a big fan of former prisons that have been reconstituted as sites for education; they will inform about the specifics of the political era in question, but they will also usually double as sites of pedagogy against oppression of human rights applying the narrative at a global level.
Today, The Exposure Project highlighted the work of Daniel & Geo Fuchs’ STASI – Secret Rooms describing it as “an exploration of the now outmoded interrogation rooms and detention centres of the East German Secret Police.”
No matter how outmoded, the depictions are chilling.
© Daniel & Geo Fuchs. From the series "STASI - Secret Rooms"
Daniel & Geo Fuchs’ STASI – Secret Rooms is featured in the latest Aperture accompanied by a Matthias Harder essay laying out the nature of Germans’ handling of memory and narrative. The architectural remnants of the era are interwoven with the national dialogue.
“The rehabilitation of the East German justice (or injustice) system and its surveillance apparatus continues; the remaining Stasi files and methodically recorded wire-tapping logs are now available to the public.”
“With this series Daniel and Geo Fuchs have rubbed salt onto an open sore of recent German history while simultaneously contributing to its articulation and healing.”
Author’s note. Prison Photography has been interested in HohenSchonhausen prior, promoting the work of the still unknown Lars.blumen
Prison Photography 