Zooming Europa: Taxonomie Moldau / Migrants Kaliningrad

Volker Kreidler, Aleksandr Matveev

‘Taxonomy Moldava’ and ‘Migrants Kaliningrad’ are the two projects shown in this exhibition.

Based on visual research in the Republic of Moldova, Volker Kreidler’s ‘Taxonomy Moldava’ photographically portrays conflicts and social upheavals in an Eastern European transitional country – from topography and space, to supra- and infrastructure, to people, their living conditions, and everyday situations.

The photographs in Alexander Matveev’s ‘Migrants Kaliningrad’ explore the situation of the Russian enclave’s inhabitants, almost all of whom are immigrants, their feelings of allegiance, and their connection to migration processes.

Complex sociopolitical situations have shaped both countries/regions: mass exodus from the Republic of Moldova; and an almost total population exchange in Kaliningrad, following its integration into the Soviet Union in 1945.