Bautzner Straße 112A - photo series of 15 - fine-art print, each 40x29cm - 2009

 

Nasan Tur’s work investigates contemporary social conditions and the impact of political ideologies upon individuals and urban landscapes. His installation Bautzner Strasse 112A explores notions of power, repression and uprising. Comprising fifteen photographs hung within a restrictively compact room, each image depicts a seemingly identical door taken from inside the prison cells of Bautzner Strasse, Dresden – a DDR-era remand center. Founded in the 1950s, this prison was used by the Stasi to detain and interrogate over 12,000 political dissidents. During the East German revolution of 1989, protesters occupied Bautzner Strasse, and numerous other remand centers around the German Democratic Republic, peacefully encouraging the collapse of the Socialist Union Party. With the physical parameters of Tur’s installation echoing the photographed prison cells, feelings of claustrophobia, entrapment and repression are elicited. Indeed, the work evokes a broader comment on the social injustices that occur behind closed doors and in prisons globally.

 

Installation view at LENTOS Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria and Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße, Dresden, Germany.