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Picture, Picture: Michelle Medenblik — The ZONE

Whenever my father talked about the former GDR he called it the Zone. It always sounded so bleak and mysterious.

— Photographer, age 50, Berlin, 2014

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My images emphasize the mundane and the ordinary, placing the persecutors on their home turf…

Cover: Michelle Medenblik, Prison, 2014 (detail) All images © & courtesy the artist.

ZONE is part documentary, part conceptual art project. It is the result of extensive research, interviews, and visits to the former Stasi Headquarters, prison, and prison hospital — all located in Berlin. I 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.

Hebrew Version: Here.

Accompanying the images are quotes I chose from conversations and interviews I held with former political prisoners, former citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and employees of the prison memorial.

Michelle Medenblik

© 2016 theFinch.net & Richard Benari

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

— Taxi Driver, age 46, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik Interrogation Room 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Interrogation Room, 2014

The statement above, made by a former GDR citizen, points to the human tendency … that if one can feel comfortable in his or her environment, one may consent to any ideology that goes along with it. By focusing on authentic interiors and design, I aim to create a comfort zone for the viewer, one which is achieved through a sense of familiarity and nostalgia, a comfort zone which I deliberately beautify to create a contrast between image and ideology.

— Michelle Medenblik

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© Michelle-Medenblik-Headquarters
Michelle Medenblik, Headquarters, 2014

If someone lived in greater comfort, you knew they worked for the Stasi. They would make up all kind of stories to explain their extra TV, but you knew.

— IT, age 45, Berlin, 2014

— IT, age 45, Berlin, 2014

My images emphasize the mundane and the ordinary, placing the persecutors on their home turf, but placing the viewer between a comfort and a discomfort zone. Vivid colors play up the conflict within the subject matter, as if to say: dictatorships don’t have a face, but a facade, a facade well fitted to the Zeitgeist, and in contradiction to what it claims to stand for.

— Michelle Medenblik, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik Headquarters 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Headquarters, 2014

When the files were opened people found out that there were thick files on their lives. Where they went, who they talked to, what they did day after day. They also found out who told on them. Which neighbour, colleague, family member, or spouse. Horrible stories came out. I didn’t want to see if there is a file on me. Maybe when I’m old and I’ll want to be reminded what I did when I was young.

— Street artist, age 46, Berlin, 2014

— Street artist, age 46, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle-Medenblik-Prison
Michelle Medenblik, Prison, 2014

What beautiful wood. We didn’t have wood in our house. Just plastic or Formica.

— Illustrator, age 30, Berlin, 2014

— Illustrator, age 30, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik Prison Cell 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Prison Cell, 2014

I was 17 when the Stasi arrested me and threw me into prison for trying to escape to the west. I was there for nine months until they sold me to the West. West Germany considered us to be German citizens so they would pay for each head they could get. The Stasi talked high but they wanted the money.

— Tour guide, age 45, Berlin, 2014

— Tour guide, age 45, Berlin, 2014

When approaching the subject I wished to engage with it by means of intimacy. The majority of the images were photographed with natural light and a 50mm lens, which enabled me to capture the process of discovery, and to situate the viewer closely to the scene. As the environment became more familiar, my attention was drawn to more subtle observations: the monotonous monochromatic view which played an integral part of the interior, the identical structure of the prison corridors to that of the interrogation ward, the plants placed for display raising questions as to the purpose they serve, and finally, objects signifying their function and Zeitgeist, evoking thoughts regarding our current vulnerability to state control.

— Michelle Medenblik

© Michelle-Medenblik-Headquarters
Michelle Medenblik, Headquarters, 2014

There is nostalgia and there is Eastalgia.

— Cleaner at the local bar, age 36, Berlin, 2014

— Cleaner at the local bar, age 36, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik, Erich Honecker - Prison Head Office, 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Erich Honecker – Prison Head Office, 2014

I was sitting at a café with a friend of mine having coffee. He said he had to go to the bathroom and left. The Stasi arrested me while I was waiting for him. That’s when I found out my friend was a Stasi informant.

— Journalist, age 55, Berlin, 2014

— Journalist, age 55, Berlin, 2014

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 some of the Germans as the enemy took on a new guise.

— Michelle Medenblik

© Michelle Medenblik Prison Hospital 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Prison Hospital, 2014

I wasn’t revolutionary when I tried to escape. I had no aspirations to save the world. I was just thinking about myself and I knew I couldn’t have a life there.

— Employee of the prison memorial, age 45, Berlin, 2014

— Employee of the prison memorial, age 45, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik Prison Hospital 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Prison Hospital, 2014

Prisoners were medically treated in the hospital, but the doctors didn’t see them as patients, but as the enemy. They worked in collaboration with the Stasi.

— Press and PR at prison memorial, age 32, Berlin, 2014

— Press and PR at prison memorial, age 32, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik Hospital Prison Cell 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Hospital Prison Cell, 2014

I used to hate coming here. It used to be called Stalin Allee, now it’s Karl Marx. All the buildings looked the same, grey and colorless. But the marches were nice. Especially when Castro came for a visit.

— Taxi driver, age 46, Berlin, 2014

— Taxi driver, age 46, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik, Former Political Prisoner, 2014
Michelle Medenblik, Former Political Prisoner, 2014

It is important for me to show people what happened. People should know what happened in history so they can learn from it. There is something to learn from it. You’re Israeli.
You know how it is.

— Former political prisoner, Active member of the Cuban opposition, age 56, Berlin, 2014

— Former political prisoner, Active member of the Cuban opposition, age 56, Berlin, 2014

© Michelle Medenblik
Michelle Medenblik, Former Political Prisoner, 2014
© 2016 theFinch.net & Richard Benari

The statement above, made by a former GDR citizen, points to the human tendency … that if one can feel comfortable in his or her environment, one may consent to any ideology that goes along with it. By focusing on authentic interiors and design, I aim to create a comfort zone for the viewer, one which is achieved through a sense of familiarity and nostalgia, a comfort zone which I deliberately beautify to create a contrast between image and ideology.

My images emphasize the mundane and the ordinary, placing the persecutors on their home turf, but placing the viewer between a comfort and a discomfort zone. Vivid colors play up the conflict within the subject matter, as if to say: dictatorships don’t have a face, but a facade, a facade well fitted to the Zeitgeist, and in contradiction to what it claims to stand for.

When approaching the subject I wished to engage with it by means of intimacy. The majority of the images were photographed with natural light and a 50mm lens, which enabled me to capture the process of discovery, and to situate the viewer closely to the scene. As the environment became more familiar, my attention was drawn to more subtle observations: the monotonous monochromatic view which played an integral part of the interior, the identical structure of the prison corridors to that of the interrogation ward, the plants placed for display raising questions as to the purpose they serve, and finally, objects signifying their function and Zeitgeist, evoking thoughts regarding our current vulnerability to state control.

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 some of the Germans as the enemy took on a new guise.

Editor’s Note:

Michelle Medenblik’s The Zone was first exhibited in May 2014 at Kayma Gallery in Jaffa, Israel. Medenblik’s photographs of the Stasi headquarters, prison and prison hospital filled the gallery’s first two floors; quotations from former GDR citizens covered the walls of a separate, single room on the gallery’s second floor. The separation was intentional, freeing the viewer of any burden of association between image and text. The quotations, exhibited without reference to image, ‘seemed to echo around the viewer’, Medenblik told us by phone. We were taken by the idea of disassociating testimony from image — how it safeguards the independence of each. Image is not illustration and quotation is not commentary. Together with her choice of a portrait lens — rather than the expected wide-angle shot that’s the norm in photojournalism — and the subtle irony that quickly becomes the subtext here, Medenblik seems to be suggesting new ideas about the documentary form.

Michelle Medenblik lives and works in Tel Aviv.

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