A writer in residence (Stadtschreiber) is a narrator of cities, someone who comments on the present and records it for posterity. Neue Berliner Räume takes up this idea and presents its long-term project Stadtschreiber on Instagram. For three month each, changing photographers will share their personal view of Berlin, its places, stories and people. Follow the Stadtschreiber here.
Stadtschreiber No 6
Franz Grünewald
June 2020
In the shadow of the booming Kurfürstendamm, the Kantstraße has been making its way into the western heart of the city for over a century now, undeterred and without much fuss. A long strip of the everyday life between Chinatown and Upper West. Where glamorous old Charlottenburg facades and brutalist functional architecture link arms with one another casually and hint at their stories rather than to shout them out loud. For miles just pure nonchalance with perhaps just the slightest concession to curiosity at its very end. The photographer Franz Grünewald takes us to Berlin’s Kantstrasse for the month of June.
Franz Grünewald (* 1993 in Plauen) is a Berlin-based photographer. Since completing his communications design studies in Potsdam in 2017, he has been working worldwide on commercial and editorial projects for various clients and publications, including Monocle, Die ZEIT, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung or fluter. In his own projects, Franz Grünewald explores the field of tension between artistic and documentary photography.
Stadtschreiber No 5
Lena Giovanazzi
May 2020
And what happens next? Searching for the traces of a new normal, Lena Giovanazzi is looking for the big and small changes that will mark this time in Berlin. We are looking forward to our new Stadtschreiberin, who will accompany us through this somewhat different May.
Lena Giovanazzi is a photographer based between Berlin and Freiburg. Born and raised in Southern Germany, she graduated from the University of Applied Sciences, Mainz and later studied under Ute Mahler and Ingo Taubhorn at Ostkreuzschule of Photography, Berlin. Since then she has worked as a freelance photographer focusing on portraits and documentary projects, both on personal topics as well as on commissions for various magazines and publications, such as die ZEIT, Süddeutsche Zeitung, brand eins, Spiegel or Chrismon. In her work she creates atmospheres that don’t reveal everything, playing with light and shadow, leaving secrets contained in sensitive portraits and situations that reach far beyond the actual moments or places.
Stadtschreiber Special
We Need Art
April 2020
During the Corona crisis, NBR launched an appeal for donations and an open call. Berlin-based photographers were invited to submit contributions. One photo was posted daily. In this extraordinary time, an image of the city emerged from many different perspectives and with constant breaks. An experiment and a sign of solidarity for the cultural workers of our city.
With: Almut Benedix, Jonas Berndt, Vera Bode, Jennifer Endom, Irma FS, Alîn Gabriel, Dagmar Gester, Lena Giovanazzi, Maximilian Glas, Franz Grünewald , Marie Haefner, Mario Heller, Louise Kempkes, Birgit Kleber, Rebecca Kraemer, Angelika Kubinski, Ingo Lawaczeck, Nikolai Marcinowski, Shari Annabell Marks, Kichun Park, Mirka Pflüger, Piotr Pietrus, Joana Pratschke, Florian Reischauer, Karim Rieg, Jana Ritchie, Romy Rolletschke, Valerie Schmidt, Melanie Ziggel, Benjamin Zvonar.
Stadtschreiber No 4
Lena Kunz
January until March 2020
Openness forms part of the everlasting myth of Berlin. But what does it mean today? And what does it actually look like? For the next three months, Stadtschreiberin Lena Kunz explores this big promise of Berlin – and aims to look at where the open city isn’t only an empty claim but a lived reality.
Lena Kunz is a social documentary photographer. With her intimate photographic approach, she focuses on sensitive personalities whose lifeworlds often remain hidden to us. She questions our sometimes limited view on people and society, and champions the ideas of greater acceptance and unity with her work.
Stadtschreiber No 3
Anna Tiessen
October 2019 until January 2020
How do we wait, alone or together, where and for how long? And for whom? For her three months as Stadtschreiberin, Anna will devote herself to the moments of waiting in Berlin.
Anna Tiessen was born in 1993 in the north of Germany, Heide.
In 2017 she finished her documentary photography studies at Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin in the class of Ute Mahler. Currently she’s working as a freelance photographer in editorial and long-term projects. And beside exhibiting her projects in several group and solo shows Anna is also a recent winner of the award „gute aussichten // new german photography 2018/19“.
Anna is living and working in Berlin.
Stadtschreiber No 2
Matias Sauter
July until October 2019
What would you take with you, if you were to leave Berlin? For his time as Stadtschreiber, Matias collects images of people and moments that remind him of what living here has come to mean to him.
Matias Sauter Morera was born in 1986 in San José, Costa Rica. After finishing his studies in Photography and teaching at the Veritas University in San José in 2010, he assisted in a landscape photography project of the Musée du quai Branly in Argentina. His photographs have been shown in various galleries and festivals, especially in Latin America, like the Despacio Gallery, the GuatePhoto Festival in Guatemala and at the Veinti4/Siete Gallery in San José 2018. In Berlin, he has been working in commercial and editorial photography. Specialized in documentary, portraiture, and fashion, he has been commissioned by renowned brands and published in international magazines like Condé Nast Traveller, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Stern. As a consequence of his lifestyle of constant moving and traveling, his work focuses on the exploration of different notions of identity and uses photography as a way to confront and create new realities. He currently divides his time between Berlin and Costa Rica, where he has been engaged in the photographic re-exploration of his childhood’s natural context – the tropical nature.
Stadtschreiber No 1
Miguel Brusch
April until July 2019
From Marienfelde to Lübars, from Zehlendorf to Marzahn – Miguel Brusch takes photos in the outskirts of Berlin for Stadtschreiber.
Miguel Brusch was born in 1983. After graduating in South Asian Studies and Media Science at the University of Hamburg, he started studying photography at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin, from which he graduated in 2018. His work has been published by various German and international media outlets and exhibited at the Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin, at the Triennial of Photography 2018 in Hamburg and at the Fotogalerie Friedrichshain in Berlin, among others. Besides editorial and commercial work, he focuses on long-term documentary projects, often playing with the border between realism and surrealism. He lives and works in Berlin.
