The Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg is showing the exhibition ‘Ein Dorf 1950-2022’, a long-term project by the three photographers. The project focusses on the Thuringian village of Berka and yet points far beyond its borders. In the 1950s, Ludwig Schirmer, Ute Mahler's father, was a master miller in Berka. As an autodidact, he began to document everyday life, the festivals and his own life. Without knowing his father-in-law's pictures, Ute's husband Werner Mahler decided to photograph his diploma thesis in Berka in 1977. A good 20 years later, in 1998, Stern magazine asked him for an update, which was never published. Ute Mahler photographed Berka in 2021/22. As a family follow-up, she created a personal work about a home village.
All four works with over 120 photographs pose questions about continuity and change, about home, childhood, about moving away and coming back, old and new, the familiar and the unfamiliar.
The exhibition was curated by Marit Lena Herrmann and is being presented as part of EMOP Berlin, opening at the same time as its main exhibition ‘was zwischen uns steht’ and the Opening Days at the AdK. The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive programme of events and educational activities; further information can be found on the AdK website. The catalogue of the same name was published by Hartmann Books and was awarded the German Photo Book Prize Gold in 2024.
Opening: 27.2.25, 7 pm
Artist talk as part of the ‘EMOP Opening Days’: with Ute Mahler, Werner Mahler and Marit Lena Herrmann, moderated by Johanna Keller, 28 February, 4 pm
Curator guided tour: with Marit Lena Herrmann, 2.3.25, 2 pm Duration: 28.2. to 4.5.25