Ah, Brandenburg … Photography in Dialogue 1996 | 2026

2.10.2026 – 14.3.2027

Opening: 1.10.2026, 18:00

What role does photography play in our memory?

Images direct our gaze, shape our visual memory and thus influence how and what we remember. To what extent does photography shape our access to the past?

The exhibition “Ah, Brandenburg … Photography in Dialogue 1996 | 2026” explores these questions. Its starting point is the largest documentary photography project in eastern Germany, carried out by Diethart Kerbs and Sophie Schleußner between 1993 and 1996 across three federal states under the title “Photography and Memory”. Its initiators saw the photographs as a ‘message in a bottle to the future’: images intended to show future generations what East German towns and landscapes looked like in the 1990s.

Thirty years later, this time capsule is being opened. It contains over 22,000 images, stored in three separate collections in Cottbus, Halle and Schwerin.

Students from the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam (Fachhochschule Potsdam) examined the Brandenburg collection in the archive of the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art in Cottbus and, divided into 15 teams, set out to locate the original shooting locations. They traced the original lines of sight and created contemporary photographs based on the rediscovered perspectives. The impressions, encounters and conversations on site also gave rise to a series of independent photographic works.

The exhibition combines historical photographs with contemporary perspectives and invites visitors to reflect on memory, change and the role of photography. It asks not only what has changed over the past three decades, but also how photographs capture their respective present moments and what stories they preserve for the future.

From ‘Photography and Memory’, 1993–1996
Arno Fischer, Christoph Gödan, Rudolf Hartmetz, Michael Herrmann, Hans W. Mende, Reinhard Münch, Lothar M. Peter, Merit Schambach geb. Pietzker, Jürgen Rehrmann, Günter Steffen, Thomas Wolf, Holger Herschel und Ulrich Wüst, Gerhard Zwickert

Participating students from the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, 2026:
Julian Flörchinger, Tara Juretko und Jannick Tismer, Clara Gabriel und Malika Wagner, Laura Günter und Cora Wild, Stephanie Hagenstein und Natalie Stahl, Florrian Bolk und Lara Jablonski, Ayiana Bartelmann, Alena Berning und Jonna Haumann, Laura Monzert und Frida Schulz, Melis Poyraz, Kevin Schmidt und Nina Schwarz, Sofia Chybisova und Melina Runow, Rudolfs Pomerancevs und Laurenz Steffan, Linda Bergemann und Ludwig Schenk, Paulina Deutmeyer und Max Kramer, Moritz Dörnenburg, Merle Kauf und Charlotte Schröter, Dana Schneider und Roman Traidl

Forst, Hohenlychen, Kausche, Kirchmöser, Landkreis Oberhavel, Landschlösser in der Uckermark, Mittenwalde, Nationalpark Unteres Odertal, Oderberg, Rathenow, Brandenburg an der Havel, Vogelsang, Wildau, Wischedörfer im Landkreis Prignitz, Wolfshagen (Uckermark)

Information on the Photography Collection of the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art (Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst) which houses the historical photographic archives of the ‘Photography and Memory: Brandenburg’ project, is available on the website of the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art.

A publication on ‘Photography and Memory: Brandenburg’ was published in 1999 by BeBra Verlag Berlin-Brandenburg.