Photographs of Cologne and other cities in the Rhineland between 1955 and 1989 make the constant change caused by the residents visible. The photo stories of migrant workers have so far hardly entered the public visual memory of cities. The exhibition at the Museum Ludwig therefore focuses on private photographs for the first time. An important starting point here are the evidence of migration stories from DOMiD's collection. In interviews, the exhibition’s lenders provide information about their diverse stories.

They talk about life in the city and how it was enlivened by their immigration. Her private photographs show how streets, houses, shops, bars and parks become bearers of memory and part of the city's history. The exhibition addresses the role of photography in this context. It combines the new and surprising city views with the photographs of urban life by Chargesheimer, Candida Höfer and Ulrich Tillmann from the Museum Ludwig collection and complements them with photographs by Christel Fomm, Gernot Huber, Guenay Ulutuncok and others. Beyond the fleeting experiences of life in the city, the photo stories of migration show the diverse ways in which one can locate oneself in a new city.

The exhibition idea goes back to the architectural historian and guest curator Ela Kaçel. In various publications from the city of Cologne and the housing company GAG Immobilien AG, she discovered photographs of residential complexes from the 1950s and 60s, which are prominent landmarks of the “New Cologne”. At the same time, the high-rise buildings were intended for workers who had come to Cologne as part of the so-called recruitment agreements of the then Federal Republic, especially with Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey. In the widely published photographs of the new city districts, the striking apartment blocks are present as defining architectural features. The iconic photographs have written city history.

Emre Baykal tarafından bağışlanmıştır.