When in 1990 East and West Germany reunified to become one country again, seven leading photographers from the East decided to start a new journey in their lives by founding a photo agency.
Ostkreuz, named after one of the busiest suburban railway stations in Berlin where the new agency was located, has since developed into one of the most successful agencies in the country with currently 18 members.
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the photographers of Ostkreuz decided to launch a special project that saw each of them embark on an individual journey to different cities of the world, trying to capture today’s urban realities through their lens.
The project resulted in the exhibition “The City. Becoming and Decaying,” which has been traveling internationally since 2010 and is now on display at Jakarta’s National Gallery.
Joerg Brueggemann, one of the photographers of Ostkreuz who was in Jakarta for the exhibition, explained that the idea behind the exhibition theme was based on the fact that statistically more people are living in cities than in the countryside.
“We thought that this might be a good starting point for a contemporary look at cities all over the world,” he said. “The subhead, ‘Becoming and Decaying,’ was actually introduced while we were working [on the project]. It shows how cities form its inhabitants, and how people living in the city are forming the city in return.”
The work process, he added, was always a joint effort, where the 18 Ostkreuz photographers would come together and discuss their ideas.
“So, although all these [photographs] are individual works, they all have been influenced by the whole group, and I hope through this we were able to give a comprehensive image of how cities look in our modern age,” Brueggemann said.
Brought to Indonesia by the German cultural center Goethe-Institut and curated by Oscar Motuloh of the local photo gallery and agency Antara, the exhibition reveals a glimpse into the daily life in 22 cities around the world. Specifically for the exhibition in Jakarta, several images of the city by photographer Fanny Octavianus, who has been working for Antara as a photojournalist for the past seven years, have been added.
“Cities are made by humans, but they are also destroyed by them,” Oscar said during the exhibition opening last Thursday evening. “And we can see here that these photos are not journalistic works per se, but that they show the photographers’ assessment of [each city] in all its complexity.”
Dawin Meckel’s journey has taken him all the way to Detroit, where, as he describes it in the introduction to his photo series “Downtown,” “the automobile is the source for everything, for better or for worse.”
The city has been put on the map thanks to major car manufacturers who opened their headquarters there, and for many years people came to Detroit in the hope for work and a better life, most of them being African American.
“They settled in the inner city where the factories were; the whites moved out to the suburbs,” he explained. “Later when the automobile manufacturers started having problems and laying off workers, the inner city began to lose population while surrounding areas remained intact. This is why the city is sometimes called the ‘urban doughnut.’ ”
(JG Photo/Katrin Figge)
Meckel, though warned by some not to, during his visit spent most of his time in downtown Detroit, which at times feels almost abandoned and only the shadow of a once thriving city.
“People live among the empty lots with nothing to do all day long. They hang out, take drugs, listen to music, play horseshoes and go to church where they are given something to eat,” Meckel said. “It is like after a catastrophe: they have survived, but they have not escaped. People are too poor to leave Detroit, and so they wait there although they know that nothing more is going to happen for them.”
Meckel beautifully captures the tristesse and dreariness of everyday life in a city that has lost most of its former glory; be it in the tired eyes of an African-American walking on the street, or a young man sitting at the window of his room, as if waiting for someone to come knock on the door and lead him away to a better world.
Pepa Hristova’s photographs always deal with search for identity, very much rooted in her own experience of being a Bulgarian living in Germany. Her series “Electronic City” shows a number of people living in one of the largest urban centers of the world: Tokyo.
“The city is like a huge machine,” she describes her experience in the Japanese capital. “Everything seems very disciplined; everything is well connected. The people are also diligent. They are constantly working.”
If meeting a Japanese person for dinner, she adds, it can very well happen that they will go back straight to the office afterward, regardless of the time. And despite that, they never complain.
“I’ve never heard someone say, like in Europe, ‘I am tired. I really need a break.’ It is hard to have a sense of what the Japanese are really thinking,” Hristova said. “They often wear masks of politeness. I’ve often wondered how people can be so controlled.”
Her photographs of a petite geisha, a man in the park watching over his two large dogs and a uniquely dresses hostess in a cafe show the many facets of a city where traditions are still held high, but modernity has an equally strong foothold.
Frank Schinski’s series, on the other hand, doesn’t focus on one city, but rather on a theme. “Transit Stills” shows train stations, airports and landing piers — here, thousands of people pass each other every day, sometimes in such a rush that they don’t even so much as glance as someone else.
“Everyone wants to get where they are going,” he writes. “Everyone is looking for their connection. I stand there, and I see a picture, a situation that says something very different from what is actually happening.”
Just as the passengers in Schinski’s photos, the exhibition takes visitors on a colorful journey. The presented images are thought-provoking, inspiring; sometimes depicting a harsh reality. After visiting cities as diverse as Lagos and Las Vegas, Manila and Chernobyl, the journey ends with the familiar images of Jakarta as seen through Fanny’s eyes; a boy in Jl. Sabang in Central Jakarta is wading through a flooded street in one stunning black-and-white photograph, while another depicts a young girl sitting in shambles passionately brushing the hair of her Barbie doll.
In his note, Fanny explains that he moved to Jakarta seven years ago — which, according to him, is more than enough time to realize that something is wrong with this city; and it is more than just the traffic jams that have become such a normal part of a Jakartan’s life.
“I often think of Jakarta as a city that can’t be saved,” he says. “There is still a window of opportunity for survival but any effort will take much time.”
Having witnessed “disasters” over the past seven years, Fanny believes Jakarta may never be able to learn its lesson because solutions to the problem are often compromised.
Jakarta is a unique place with its own specific problems, not unlike other cities. Fanny’s description of it being “a city of compromises, a place to juggle the conflicting interests, dreams and ambitions of its millions of inhabitants within the small space of reality,” contains a truth that can be found anywhere.
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