The ability to improvise should be a virtue of every photographer; Heinrich Völkels (*1974 in Moskau) photography is characterized by it. His ability to adjust to adverse situations seems in fact to be the key issue of many of his works. He photographed extensively in the Gaza strip, where the stark contrast between the destruction of urban landscape by the Israeli troops on the one hand and the immense will of the Palestinian population to continue to live in this environment on the other hand results in a strangely aesthetical body of work. In Morocco he shot African refugees in the very moment, when they jumped from their ladders over the fences and borders into what they hoped to be freedom. His work fascinates through moments of rest, which incorporate the past as well as the future, pain and hope. Within the framework of the OSTKREUZ exhibition “On Borders.” he sketched the disastrous picture of Cyprian cities that became battlefields and exist now merely as border land between war and peace. Though immensely dedicated to the object of photography anyway, Heinrich Völkel never forgets the subjects, the people, and always catches the individual atmosphere of each person as he has proven various times – aside from his personal projects – on assignments for magazines such as DIE ZEIT, Stern or DER SPIEGEL. He works and lives in Wiesbaden.