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The Echo of History
The Echo of History
April 6, 2023
© Kai Löffelbein
The exhibition ‘Echo Echo – Hannover Kolonial’ by German photographer Kai Löffelbein opens at the Galerie für Fotografie (GAF) on April 6, 2023. As the winner of last year’s ‘Hannover Shots’ – a 10,000-euro grant for professional photographers awarded by the Sparkasse Hannover Foundation – Löffelbein embarked on an intensive project to explore his home city’s postcolonial legacy. The resulting images, captured in public spaces across Hanover, will be on show at the GAF through to April 30, 2023.
During the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the late 1800s, the German Empire gained access to the continent’s valuable natural resources. Forced labour and violence against the territories’ native population were implemented as part of Germany’s colonial rule. For a long time, this dark chapter of the country’s history was underrepresented within the national discourse and culture of remembrance, and even within the field of academic research.
To create his exhibition, Kai Löffelbein searched Hanover’s museum collections, as well as the city’s urban landscape, for relics and forgotten traces of Germany’s colonial past. This also led him to identify ongoing perpetuations of colonial stereotypes. The so-called ‘Africa Quarter’ in Hanover-Badenstedt, as well as long-established trading companies, became the focus of the photographer’s concentrated gaze – as did the Zambezi-themed section of Hanover’s Adventure Zoo.
Despite Löffelbein’s intrinsically documentary approach, his images play with our perception of reality: Are we really looking at a monoplane that has crashed in the jungle?
During the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the late 1800s, the German Empire gained access to the continent’s valuable natural resources. Forced labour and violence against the territories’ native population were implemented as part of Germany’s colonial rule. For a long time, this dark chapter of the country’s history was underrepresented within the national discourse and culture of remembrance, and even within the field of academic research.
To create his exhibition, Kai Löffelbein searched Hanover’s museum collections, as well as the city’s urban landscape, for relics and forgotten traces of Germany’s colonial past. This also led him to identify ongoing perpetuations of colonial stereotypes. The so-called ‘Africa Quarter’ in Hanover-Badenstedt, as well as long-established trading companies, became the focus of the photographer’s concentrated gaze – as did the Zambezi-themed section of Hanover’s Adventure Zoo.
Despite Löffelbein’s intrinsically documentary approach, his images play with our perception of reality: Are we really looking at a monoplane that has crashed in the jungle?
© Kai Löffelbein
© Kai Löffelbein
© Kai Löffelbein
© Kai Löffelbein