Last shift: me­mo­ries of Bran­den­bur­g’s in­dus­tri­al past

The spe­cial ex­hi­bi­ti­on “Last Shift: Bran­den­burg 1994” at the Uto­pia and Ever­y­day Life Mu­se­um in­vi­tes vi­si­tors to ta­ke a look at th­ree ab­an­do­ned fos­sil fuel power ge­ne­ra­ti­on sites in the sta­te of Bran­den­burg. The 1990s we­re cha­rac­te­ri­sed by far-rea­ching ch­an­ges in the East Ger­man in­dus­tri­al land­scape: clo­sures, de­mo­li­ti­ons and the loss of ar­chi­tec­tu­ral­ly and his­to­ri­cal­ly si­gni­fi­cant in­dus­tri­al plants do­mi­na­ted the land­scape. In ma­ny ca­ses, not­hing re­main­ed of the for­mer fac­to­ries, as their he­ri­ta­ge va­lue was ra­re­ly re­co­g­nis­ed. In the midst of this ch­an­ge, do­cu­men­ta­ry pho­to­gra­phy play­ed a de­cisi­ve ro­le — it pre­ser­ved im­pres­si­ons of li­ving and working en­vi­ron­ments that had al­most com­ple­te­ly di­s­ap­peared.

At the cent­re of the ex­hi­bi­ti­on are 15 im­pres­si­ve co­lour pho­to­graphs by Pe­ter Ha­mel, which are be­ing shown in the mu­se­um for the first time. Ha­mel vi­si­ted the power sta­ti­ons in Pots­dam-Nord, Bries­kow-Fin­ken­heerd and Ei­sen­hüt­ten­stadt in 1994 — all of them short­ly be­fo­re or af­ter their de­com­mis­sio­ning — and cap­tu­red mo­ments of the end: ab­an­do­ned con­trol rooms, de­ser­ted tur­bi­ne halls and ghost­ly di­ning rooms tell of the last shift of an en­ti­re in­dus­tri­al era. The ex­hi­bi­ti­on is ac­com­pa­nied by the new pho­to book “Pe­ter Ha­mel: Bran­den­burg 1994”, which cap­tures this si­gni­fi­cant mo­ment bet­ween the past and ob­li­vi­on.