border Archive | malenki.net

Arriving — About the Architecture of Refugee Accommodation in Germany

Robert Schlotter — Sat, 03 Aug 2024 09:41:36 +0000

Ankommen is a study of architectural infrastructure for state-provided accommodation for refugees in Germany. During the so called European migrant crisis from 2015 on Germany got known for its ‘welcome culture’ towards refugees. Since 2015 millions of refugees have arrived to the country and the state has had to react quickly trying to provide sufficient housing for the immigrants. In the fast paced urban planning process material and immaterial borders are created, making it challenging for the refugees to settle. Through photographic documentation, aerial views and official documents of regulations regarding refugee housing complexes the book raises a questions about the architecture’s impairing effects for refugees integration to German society. (https://kultbooks.com/)

2020 – German Photobook Award Winner (Dummy)

2020 – KASSEL DUMMY AWARD Shortlist

2021 – Publication grant VG Bild-Kunst Cultural Funding

Der Beitrag Arriving — About the Architecture of Refugee Accommodation in Germany erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Hotel Bellevue

Robert Schlotter — Sat, 15 Jan 2022 10:51:11 +0000

Hotel Bellevue by Dries Segers is a beautiful, small photo book and a vocabulary centered around border trees, Celtic historical facts and visual speculation. This book is a manifesto for love, anger, the non-human, a wish to connect, to suggest, and to study. Only things from the heart deliver.
Mark trees are trees that are planted at strategic locations in the landscape. They make visible certain transitions of national, community and property borders. Multiple administrations monitor the conservation of these trees. Governments are obliged by law to maintain, replant and protect them. In a changing geopolitical landscape, however, these trees often lose their function as cultural-historical bearers and merge into their environment as non-information.
Trees have been present on this planet for 370,000,000 years. They have fallen into invisibility because they are losing their function in the landscape to a new, fuller panorama of symbols and signs. Road-building, agriculture and urbanisation have a lot to do with this, but so do technological and industrial progress. Centuries ago, some trees functioned as visual elements in a landscape in order to orient ourselves.

Der Beitrag Hotel Bellevue erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

In Belief Is Power

Robert Schlotter — Fri, 03 May 2019 12:05:05 +0000

Being a Bulgarian immigrant in Western Europe, I know how important the welcoming and friendly attitude of the local people is for the newcomers. How great my indignation was when Bulgaria, my home country, the place of origin for two million emigrants, tolerated nationalist groups to hunt down Muslim refugees who were illegally crossing E.U.’s external border with Turkey.

The articles in the Western media informing about the activities of the Bulgarian nationalists raised a lot of questions for me. I am trying to express these with the present project: what provokes one’s fear of foreigners; what is the life and history of the local population who live near the border, where different political interests intersect; what is the “Bulgarian” identity exactly made up of; how does the border region reflect what is happening across Europe; is there a “beautiful” nationalism that would help a vanishing nation preserve itself (Bulgaria is said to be the fastest disappearing nation in the world); and, finally, what connects us as people?

The title of the book is borrowed from an inscription from a small chapel in the border area, built in honor of St. Marina: “In faith is power”. I have changed it to “In belief is power” in order to address the relationship of belief not only with religion, but also with different political and economic systems, as well as the consequences of these relationships.

Der Beitrag In Belief Is Power erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Beyond Cold War – Collectors Edition

Robert Schlotter — Sun, 07 Jun 2015 17:03:43 +0000

Beyond Cold War is based on the examination of confrontation areas of the Cold War in Europe. Border regions on which the NATO states and those of the Warsaw Pact stood face to face to each other.
During the Cold War the observers were always observed, too. The feeling of observing and simultaneously being observed, the assumed harassment through the antagonist, the alertness and awaiting (action and reaction) are the central starting points of my work. For both sides there was the question about the world behind the border, because both were stamped by massive cultural and political differences, laboured by analogous propaganda.

Jürgen Kühner on Beyond Cold War

“[…] Schlotter’s photographs only take effect at second glance. It is only through the context that they change from generic landscape photographs to a socio-political analysis with the conclusion that borders can run anywhere and at any time, that no structures are needed to separate countries and people.”

https://framesandfascination.com/2019/09/02/robert-schlotter-beyond-cold-war/

Der Beitrag Beyond Cold War – Collectors Edition erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Beyond Cold War

Robert Schlotter — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 10:16:31 +0000

https://framesandfascination.com/2022/01/22/robert-schlotter-beyond-cold-war/

Der Beitrag Beyond Cold War erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.