Image and Interview: Wer ist Leipzig?
The black and white photographic portraits and text interviews in this series illuminate today’s Leipzig, in the faces and words of 20 people who sat with the artist in December 2019. Originally inspired by the portraits of Felix Nadar, in this work Moses complements the intimate photographic portraits with responses to an equally intimate set of questions. "Image and Interview: Wer ist Leipzig?" was exhibited in the Leipzig Rundgang, in the Spinnerei, in January 2020.
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The portraits and the interviews open up the city through its subjects, and the expression of their feelings and ideas – poignant, funny, brave, and thoughtful. All sitters were asked the same set of reflective questions, looking back to their early lives, inward at values, affections, and fears, and also thinking forward to plans, intentions, and hopes.
As a visiting artist, Moses found participants through travel-friendship organizations (Servas and Women Welcome Women), through friends-of-friends, and by networking. The group ranges in age, occupation, origin, and life experiences. The portrait and interview project peels the layers of history lived in Leipzig, from the Eastern Bloc days, to the turbulence of Die Wende, the turning point, and lands in the present, with the climate crisis. In portraying her Leipzig contemporaries, Moses sensitively queries, observes, and records. Leipzigers reveal a deep affection for blue skies, and for forests. Strong values surface about helping one-another. Subjects look back on their family relations, memories of painful losses, and struggles fitting in with family and at school. In future-oriented questions, Leipzigers consider what their place will be in the larger world, and the meaning one’s life has. The exhibit uncovers the energy and passions of the many young people managing their lives in this booming Eastern city.
The works in Image & Interview: Wer ist Leipzig? support tolerance and respect on a personal level, and on an intercultural level. The exhibit groups 20 Leipzigers who mostly didn’t know each other, but whose lives intermesh, even as they speak in distinctive voices. The interviews lead both the subjects, and the viewers, to look into their hearts, to see their part in the world. Image & Interview: Wer ist Leipzig? presents a snapshot, in this time, with this artist, in this changing place. Although the participants represent a tiny fraction of Leipzig, as a group the portraits and interviews reveal the rich diversity of this dynamic city, and a shared human essence.
