EMOP 2025 Festival Exhibition
The EMOP 2025 festival exhibition ‘what stands between us. Photography as a Medium for Chronicling’ invites us to question the role of photography in an increasingly polarised world and to open up new perspectives on the narration of history and the present.
Image gallery
Simon Lehner, Balance study with boy, 2018
Raisan Hameed, o.T., 2022
Susanne Keichel Berufsschüler*in I, Duisburg, 2023
Maya Schweizer o.T.
In a time of crises and polarisation, the exhibition asks what role photographs and texts play in conveying reality. Images shape our perception, reinforce divisions and become a medium of polarisation themselves.
But can images also build bridges?
The works shown break with simple certainties and focus on new possibilities of narration and understanding. Topics such as origin and educational opportunities, the exclusion of people with a history of migration, the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall or social radicalisation are examined in micro-histories.
Current conflicts such as Russia's war against Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East are also viewed from a critical distance – without making bold statements, but rather asking questions and reflecting.
The contemporary works are supplemented by archival material from the Academy of Arts, including the archives of John Heartfield and Walter Benjamin. These historical documents give the exhibition a dimension of memory politics.
With the exhibition, curator Maren Lübbke-Tidow emphasises the importance of small stories, which are indispensable for understanding history:
‘The chronicler who recounts events without distinguishing between large and small does so in recognition of the fact that nothing that has ever occurred is lost to history.’ (Walter Benjamin)
The exhibition brings together works by around 20 artists.
Additional information
Opening hours
Monday: closed
Tuesday–Friday: 2–7 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: 11 a.m.–7 p.m.
Admission prices
Regular: €10 (combined ticket with the exhibition A Village 1950–2022)
Reduced: €7
Free admission: visitors aged 18 and under and on Tuesdays
Accessibility
The exhibition at Hanseatenweg is barrier-free. The following facilities are available:
Wheelchair-accessible toilet
Disabled parking
Wheelchair-accessible lift
Barrier-free access
Participating artists
Ilit Azoulay
Yevgenia Belorusets
Cana Bilir-Meier
Hannah Darabi
Bérangère Fromont
Benoît Grimbert
Beate Gütschow
Raisan Hameed
John Heartfield
Leon Kahane
Susanne Keichel
Simon Lehner
Boris Mikhailov
Helga Paris
Fungi aka Phuong Tran Minh
Einar Schleef
Maya Schweizer
Wenke Seemann
Christine Würmell
Tobias Zielony und Pınar Öğrenci
