OSTKREUZ - Agency of photographers: tracing the legacy of the German Democratic Republic in post-socialist photography and exhibition making

Emanating from the idea that forty years of socialist history, culture and socialisation did not vanish into thin air with the downfall of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), this thesis explores whether social and cultural identities associated with the former socialist state lingered on and how they continued to shape and affect photographic practices in post-Wall Germany. In particular, I focus on OSTKREUZ, a Berlin-based photographers' agency whose foundation in 1990 served as a survival strategy in the tumultuous post-reunification period. The agency follows a twin-track approach of photographing for assignments and realising their individual photo series, which are then presented in exhibitions. This reflects the way in which freelance photographers worked in the former GDR. Hailed as 'experts of the East' by West German magazines and newspapers, most of the commissions in reunified Germany took place in the East and the founding members were hired to portray their compatriots. The period after the fall of the Berlin Wall was characterised by a lack of knowledge about and an enormous interest in the former GDR yet, the diverging political, social and economic developments had resulted in East Germany being constructed as 'other' from a West German perspective. Therefore, I investigate the question of whether the photographers had to adhere to or were able to counter a depiction of the former GDR as 'other' by discussing the agency's commissions and assignments in the 1990s. To ascertain whether OSTKREUZ upholds East German social and cultural identities and whether they can be traced in their exhibitions, I examine their self-produced shows from 2005 until 2015.