Structure and Architecture

The Post-Industrial Cultural Heritage of Upper Silesia

Anke Illing, Thomas Voßbeck

The unique industrial region of Upper Silesia in Germany’s neighbour country Poland has undergone extensive structural changes since the mid-1980s. Many plants in the steel and mining region have been shut down or demolished. How do people in the region deal with this imposing industrial heritage? In an artistic, documentary manner, the exclusively analog photos by the photographer Thomas Vossbeck from the Europareportage initiative offer an interesting look into a working world that will soon cease to exist. A German-Polish exhibition catalogue has published in conjunction with the exhibition, which has been on show in Germany and Poland since November 2010. In collaboration with the sound artist Richard Ortmann, numerous acoustic recordings of diverse industrial facilities were created and can be heard on headphones in the exhibition and on the CD accompanying the catalogue. Thomas Vossbeck and Anke Illing