People

Last update: 9 August, 2011.

This page tries to put a human face on the changing coal economy and landscape. In collaboration with Katja Wolf, I interviewed and photographed people whose lives have been profoundly affected or who have played important roles in coping with or shaping these changes.

There is no attempt at exhaustive or even representative coverage. The first people I asked to pose I had met more or less by chance. Then Katja Wolf produced a list of personalities who had appeared on her radar screen during her tenure as editor of publications at IBA-See. Tommaso Lana later shared the contacts from his two-year preparation of a performance art project with citizens of the mining town of Welzow. Some subjects suggested others, and background reading keeps widening the field. To photograph everyone on the list has thus become an impossible proposition; we'll see how far we get.

I am deeply grateful to all who have participated thus far. Their stories are fonts of creativity, dogged resilience, willingness to learn, application, generosity, modesty, and good humor.

The page is under construction. Crips thumbnails lead to images with text, faded thumbnails to images for which the text is still in the works.