Anne Schönharting | Tuesday 27.04. - 7pm
Artist Statement:
'The heritage
What in other families is the guest room, in my family was called the 'Africa room'. For four generations it was the place for the collection of my great-grandfather Willy Klare. He was a cocoa plantation manager in what is now Equatorial Guinea in the early 20th century.
For more than a hundred years, my family held on to this collection of objects, photos and postcards.
The Africa room moved with them, most recently to my parents' row house in the village of Diera near Meissen.
In GDR times, the room was a symbol of the longing to travel. The colonial background of the artifacts, however, remained largely unreflected.
After the death of my parents, I began to deal with my family heritage in a new way. I carried the exotic objects into the nature of my childhood in Saxony and traveled to Equatorial Guinea in search of traces of my great-grandfather.
Through my personal arrangements of the objects, sifting and curating the photographs and documents, I seek a new look at the colonial family heritage.
In the process of reappraisal, a book has emerged and an exhibition space. The condensed Africa Room, in which the objects are only photographic images, is to move, as the original did. What happens with the real objects I will see. They will find their way.'
Short Bio:
1973 born in Meißen, 1995-1998 training at the Lette-Verein Berlin, specializing in photo design, 1997 Kodak Nachwuchs Förderpreis, since 1999 member of OSTKREUZ, 2005/2007 Medienpreis der Kindernothilfe-Stiftung, 2006 VG Bild-Kunst -Stipendium, 2006/2007 Hansel-Mieth-Preis, 2007 teaching position at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, 2016 VG Bild-Kunst grant, participation in numerous collective exhibitions and currently represented with "Das Erbe" at the Akademie der Künste and with "Charlottenburg" at the Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin, since 2019 co-managing director of OSTKREUZ and since 2020 substitute professorship for photography at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
'Whether nomads in Kyrgyzstan, an urban utopia in India, long-term portrait series in Berlin-Charlottenburg, life between the walls in Belfast or dealing with the colonial heritage of my great-grandfather. I devote myself to a wide variety of subjects, moving between genres, be it portraiture, artistic documentary photography or social study. In doing so, I have been working on my own projects for over 25 years, as well as commissioned work.'
www.instagram.com/anneschoenharting
www.anneschoenharting.com
