“If you didn’t have any political involvement, any professional aspiration, or any concern for the human aspect, and all you wanted was to go to work and have a secure life, you could easily be content”
Taxi Driver, age 46, Berlin, 2014
THE ZONE is part documentary, part conceptual, and is based on extensive research, interviews, and many visits to the former Stasi Headquarters, the former Stasi prison, and the former Stasi prison hospital – all located in Berlin. I also had the privilege of obtaining permission from the Hohenschönhausen Memorial Center to photograph sections that are closed to the public such as the prison hospital and control rooms.
Accompanying the images are quotes I chose from conversations and interviews I held with former political prisoners, former GDR citizens and employees of the prison memorial.
Capturing the carefully preserved remains of the Cold War provides an intimate glimpse into the Modern Architecture of State Control, as well as into what life became for part of the Germans as the enemy took on a new guise.