Urban Worlds

Pictures from European Cities

Zsolt Reviczky

The founding fathers dreamed of a flourishing and united European Union, where a richness of diversity and difference results in tolerance. Several decades quickly pass before we reach the rocky path of the free flow of products, capital, and services, and hear German chancellor Angela Merkel’s well-known speech she held in Potsdam at a conference of her political party in October of 2010, during which she proclaimed the end of multiculturalism. Is this the fall of a utopia, or simply a new course at the beginning of the 21st century?
During his NKA residency in Berlin, Reviczky took his photographs for the MdF Berlin in the immigrant-rich districts of Neukölln, Kreuzberg, and Wedding throughout the spring of 2014. Berlin is particularly well-suited for the pictorial analysis of issues arising from the coexistence of various cultures; 865,000 residents of the city’s total population of 3.35 million have an immigrant background. In his depictions of community life’s good and bad sides, Reviczky seeks to manifest his belief in the aforementioned utopia. At the same time, this exhibition draws parallels to similar districts in other European cities.