Vernissage vhs-photogalerie: Michel Kekulé. MUTTERLAND vhs-photogalerie stuttgart

Vernissage vhs-photogalerie with welcome, introduction and reading with Björn Kuhligk (writer) and live music with Tilman Schaal (trombone)

MUTTERLAND is a fragmentary, documentary work in which Michel Kekulé explores the social and personal fractures left behind by German reunification in the East German provinces. Even more than 35 years after the fall of the Wall, the consequences of this upheaval can still be felt. The work approaches a region in which traces of transformation have been inscribed - and at the same time searches for answers in the past. It moves between a social
reappraisal and an intimate examination of the photographer's own family history.
MUTTERLAND is not a glorification of the past, not a romanticization of a lost state. It is an attempt to capture that which does not disappear in transition, but rather shifts. A search for traces of the fractures in the East, the echoes of which are only now becoming audible. What remains is the image: as proof, as an assertion of the present.
Michel Kekulé's photographic work is characterized by an intensive examination of social issues and provides insights into different living environments. His core themes include migration and the multi-perspective examination of East Germany. His work focuses on social realities in which social inequalities, tensions and fractures are condensed - without limiting them to a geographical area. Michel Kekulé lives in Berlin.

Curator of the exhibition: Bettina Michel
Exhibition duration: 02.10. - 16.11.25