FOUND NEGATIVES FROM THE COLD WAR ERA

In 2010 I was able to rescue several thousand abandoned and deteriorated anonymous black and white negatives I had discovered by chance on the former territory of the USSR while working on a different assignment. As I learned later during the scanning process those found photographs were documenting life in Vinnitsa/Ukraine during the Cold War years, covering the period between 1950 to 1990. This treasure of nearly 10 000 b/w negatives had been taken by fotojournalists for the local communist newspaper. With the generous assistance of the regional art museum I was able to take this lost archive to Germany. After a painstaking and time consuming cleaning and scanning process I began to work with the material which was inspiring enough to let me explore it in different directions. The signs of decay having overwritten the original negatives during 20 years of neglect led to 12 silkscreens (the admission to the competition was limited to 10 works from that edition). Their selection was guided by the spirit of artists I admire and whose works I saw reflected in them - burkhard von harder, fall 2021