Journey of No Return

Upheavals and Utopias: The Other Europe

Elisabeth Czihak, Christina Paetsch

In her photography, Elisabeth Czihak has been investigating the remaining traces of abandoned places for many years. A three-month sojourn in Česky Krumlov in the Czech Republic gave rise to a series of photographs that speak of political utopias, their social impact, and the marks left in their wake. The Czech Republic is still a country of the ‘other’ Europe. When compared to western Europe, the region’s eventful history becomes legible in a different way; catching up to capitalism 25 years ago left little time to ‘clean up’, renovate, tear down, or revive the remnants from earlier eras.
Social change and a radical break in structures and ways of life is also evident in Christina Paetsch’s photographs: in a recent personal portrait of the Berlin district of Neukölln, she reveals the diverse cultural and ethnic peculiarities developed over many decades – the identification with a neighbourhood, the modest bliss of the garden plot, the privacy of one’s home, or the corner bar. Utopias in the present tense that suddenly disappear due to changes from the outside.