For his project Deponie, Tobias Kruse sought out the traces and scars of a time that still casts a lingering shadow on the present: the years subsequent to the reunification of East Germany. A wild and paradoxical time, rich in opportunities, but one which also brought disappointment, anger and bitterness. Thirty years on from the fall of the Wall, the photographer and native of Mecklenburg, drove 8,000 kilometers through Eastern Germany, capturing what is left in the wake of this monumental juncture in history. A psycho-geographic exploration, Kruse documented everything from desolate countryside and rural villages to packed football stadiums and nighttime demonstrations – phenomena that are as much historical as they are contemporary in their integral space in Germany’s collective memory.
Impressions from DEPONIE
The series was created in 2019 and 2020 as part of the recommended Olympus Fellowship program and has been exhibited at the Haus der Photographie of the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, and FOAM Amsterdam.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by spectorbooks.
Tobias Kruse was born in Waren/Müritz in 1979 and grew up in Schwerin. He studied with Prof. Ute Mahler at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin and attended Prof. Arno Fischer’s master class there. Kruse has been a member of the Ostkreuz agency since 2011 and works internationally. Kruse lives and works in Berlin.