BER, 2017-2020
An airport with no planes, a terminal with no passengers, a train station with no trains, a marketplace with no market.
Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (code: BER) was, for a long time, a major project that never came to an end: half-finished, devoid of function, perpetually suspended. Over a period of three years Matthias Hoch studied this stasis, looking at the site through the lens of an analogue large-format camera and a digital film camera, rather like an archaeologist: area by area, space by space — from the railway station to the boarding gate, from landside to airside — viewing it as a potential user might see it. The result is a series of images showing a mysterious construct — photographs and videos of a place where the not-yet merely seems to have given way to a not-anymore: a picture puzzle of time.
The body of work BER consists of 52 color photographs (2017-2020, c-prints, framed, 81x100 and 100x123 cm) and a three channel video installation (2021, 4k, 13’40 min, cinematography and editing: Philipp Hoch, sound: Lena Meinhardt, Eva Dörr). Kindly supported by Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH. With special thanks to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Engelbert Lütke Daldrup.
Exhibitions: Matthias Hoch, BER, Galerie Nordenhake Berlin, June 18 - September 4, 2021;
Matthias Hoch, L'Entracte, Goethe-Institut Paris, June 16 - September 6, 2022.
Publication: Matthias Hoch, BER, with essays by Kathrin Röggla and Thomas Weski, Spector Books, September 2021. → more
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