No Man’s Land
No Man’s Land
Bettina Flitner
May 15, 2015
“I came over in 1960. I was a miner in the Lausitz. When I wanted to visit my mother, I always had to pay a fee. That really wasn’t on.”
“How do you feel now?” That was the question photographer Bettina Flitner started asking people from east and west immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Equipped with camera and note book, she spent months exploring the former deadly ‘no man’s land’ that divided the city for 28 years – a slice of living history in words and images.
More photos and an interview with Bettina Flitner in M Magazine No. 2 - available now.
More photos and an interview with Bettina Flitner in M Magazine No. 2 - available now.
Bettina Flitner+-
Born in Cologne in 1961, Bettina Flitner came to photography via television. She trained as an editor at the West German Radio and Television station (WDR) and then studied at the German Film and Television Academy. Her ‘Reportage from No Man’s Land’ about the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall was her first outstanding photo project and her breakthrough as a photographer. The work was published as a book and distributed worldwide. Two years later she became a member of the laif Agency. The photographer’s installations and photo sculptures in public spaces often trigger hefty debates, but they have also earned her many awards, including the 1993 Chargesheimer Grant from the city of Cologne and the 2001 Rückblende special award for political photography.
Since 2016 she is the CEO of the German Photographic Association. More
“I came over in 1960. I was a miner in the Lausitz. When I wanted to visit my mother, I always had to pay a fee. That really wasn’t on.”