Portraits of history

 

Heike Steinweg’s photographs in the Berlin exhibition “Open History” focus on Israelis and Germans.

 

“The first time a German and an Israeli have a conversation it is never just small talk – history is always sitting at the table, too,” comments German writer Sarah Stricker, who lives in Israel.

Stricker is one of more than a dozen people whose portrait has been taken by photographer Heike Steinweg. In the exhibition, each picture is accompanied by a quotation taken from the lengthy conversations Steinweg had with her protagonists. In fact, she spent an entire year meeting Israelis who live in Berlin and Germans who have based their lives in Israel.

The themes of identity, past and future run like a red thread through the interviews in which Steinweg explored the personal reasons that prompted her interviewees to live in the respective other country. Why are so many young Israelis moving to Berlin? What role does the past play in this? How do their parents and grandparents view their decision? And how do Germans feel living in Israel? How are they viewed?

The general tenor of the answers is that the mutual interest and the appeal exist not despite the shared past but precisely because of it. The exhibition “Open History” is on view until 2 August at Rathaus Tempelhof in Berlin.

    

    

Open History

Israelis und Deutsche im Portrait

Fotografien von Heike Steinweg

Until 2 August 2015

Mon to Fri 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Galerie im Rathaus Tempelhof

Tempelhofer Damm 165, Berlin