Stephanie Steinkopf’s Manhattan—Straße der Jugend
▻http://www.stephaniesteinkopf.de/?page_id=36
“In this day of iThis and iThat, we’re all kings or queens of our own domains, as much – or as little – as we might actually feel like one. This man, with his paper crown, sitting in front of a cheap plastic table on top of which there appears to be only alcohol, makes for a sad king; and he seems aware of it. This man lives in Manhattan. Manhattan here lies somewhere in Eastern Germany, in a small village around an hour’s drive from Berlin. There are two apartment blocks in the village, one shuttered; they are called Manhattan. Many parts of Eastern Germany have been hit pretty hard by reunification. iThis and iThat arrived, but jobs didn’t. Neither did the prosperity promised by former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose “blooming landscapes” metaphor famously has become a bitter joke for still living in areas that often share much with the American rust belt, say.
As a photographer, you can thus only hope for the best. You release your pictures into the world, just like you’d throw a stone into a lake: Hoping that the ripples will move out farther and farther without just dissipating.”
▻http://cphmag.com/steinkopf-manhattan
#photo #brandebourg #est #allemagne #pauvreté #réunification