from one place to another…

Dido Baxevanidis, Elena Capra, Isabel Kiesewetter, Dagmar Kolatschny, Claire Laude, Anna Meschiari, George Papacharalambus, Ulrike Schmitz, Ina Schoenenburg, Anke Schüttler, Yann Tostain

A young girl standing in front of an illuminated bus stop advertisement gazes into the dark of the night. She’s not a model; instead of a mid-sized car, the ad shows a group of Roma.
In his photo piece in Absentia, Yann Tostain depicts the precarious living situation facing the Roma in a way that’s very different from the usual magazine reports. He installs his images in places where they are the least expected: as outdoor advertisements in major European cities. The work constitutes a provocative commentary in a time marked by a fear of poverty-stricken immigrants. Tostain’s work is one of eleven positions by the collective exp12 that employ subtle means to address departure and arrival in a Europe in the midst of change. The works are shown together in the group exhibition from one place to another… Streams of people as a result of political and economic change, a fear of the foreign or of being foreign: the photographers, who come from a variety of European backgrounds themselves, have a closer look at Europe today and approach its themes in highly personal images.