War Beyond War

Before, Alongside and After the War – Explorations on the Fringes of Conflict has been in the making for more than ten years. For his long-term project, Meinrad Schade (1968) visited parts of contemporary Russia, as well as post-Soviet states, Israel and Palestine in order to investigate former – yet often still smouldering and potentially re-erupting – conflicts in the form of detailed reportages.

Schade is not a war photographer in the classic sense. Rather than reporting from the immediate hot-spots of violent conflicts, his work extends over long periods of time, focusing on locations on the periphery of the fighting.

For some time now, Schade has also documented the Eurosatory defense and security fair in Paris and the War & Peace Show in the UK, where the concept of war is brought to life for a mass audience – visiting either under the mantle of historic education, or with an undisguised economic interest.

While Schade highlights that money is among the root causes for the incessant series of armed conflicts across the world, he also draws attention to the fact that there is a deeply innate fascination for warfare and violence in our culture – something he knows even his photographs will not be able to change.

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