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Border fences

With this series, I am investigating a phenomenon, that I discovered soon after the fall of the border between the two German states: In the villages of Saxony-Anhalt, many inhabitants built high fences around their properties. Was it to protect their belongings, was it to retract and to seal off, or was it simply because of the easier availability of construction material? After the state border had fallen and the border fence had been torn down, new fences were erected, forming new frontiers. This phenomenon is still present today and can also be discovered in the western parts of Germany now, as the pictures from Lower Saxony show. The old, wooden picket fence, shown on one of the photos, was the usual railing before the border opening; it is still shaping the Altmark until today, but gets more and more seldom.

Taken in summer 2019 in the villages on both sides of the former inner-German border.

Nine pictures of this series contributed to the group exhibition ZONENRANDGEBIET of the 
Museum for Photography, Braunschweig (14.12.2019 - 26.1.2020).

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