To mark the 35th anniversary of the German-Polish Neighborhood Treaty, the special exhibition “Ostgebiete / Ziemie Zachodnie” brings together renowned photographers from both countries in a visual dialogue on memory, identity, and transformation.
Image gallery
Linn Schröder/OSTKREUZ
The focus is on German-Polish perspectives on a shared space of memory in Poland. For many Germans, the former eastern territories of the German Reich are associated with flight and expulsion, with the memory of the loss of home and the survival of these profound experiences in countless family histories. They are part of a collective memory that continues to shape identities in this country to this day. From the Polish perspective, the Ziemie Zachodnie—the Western Territories after 1945—mean something else: new arrivals had often been expelled from the East themselves and carried the experience of German occupation within them. It was about arriving in a foreign land, a difficult new beginning, and a region shaped by Germans that only slowly became a homeland. The perspectives are fundamentally different and yet inextricably intertwined. The artistic works of ten photographers from both countries show how traces of a process—still visible and palpable today, characterized by appropriation and farewell—have become inscribed in landscapes, architecture, and family narratives on both sides of the Oder.
Featured artists: Karolina Gembara, Annette Hauschild, Thomas Meyer, Katarzyna Mirczak, Filip Piotrowicz, Natalia Poniatowska, Linn Schröder, Ina Schoenenburg, Wojtek Sienkiewicz, Heinrich Völkel
- Duration: May 29, 2026, to January 17, 2027
- Artistic Curator: Karolina Gembara
- Project management: Barbara Kurowska, Arvid Peschel
- Design: Naroska Design
In cooperation with OSTKREUZ – Agency for Photographers
