Spreeblitz

Beskrivelse

Spreeblitz is a striking collection of black and white photos captured over a decade at Spreepark, an abandoned theme park in Berlin's Plänterwald. The park, once part of East Germany, fell into ruin and neglect after declaring bankruptcy in 2001.

A photographic journey through the haunting remnants of Spreepark and nature’s slow reclaiming of the space.

Spreeblitz showcases a series of evocative black and white images taken between 1996 and 2006 in Spreepark, located in the Treptow-Köpenick district of Berlin. Following the park's bankruptcy in 2001, the area became marked by decay and vandalism. In 2014, Berlin repurchased the site with plans to transform it into a modern cultural park by 2026. Over the years, nature has gradually taken over the abandoned amusement park.

The book includes insightful texts by Jytte Rex and Tove Thage, adding depth to the visual narrative.

Fie Johansen, born in 1953, is a trailblazer in Danish digital art photography. She skillfully blends digital techniques with the essence of traditional analogue darkroom methods. Johansen studied and worked at the Institute for Visual Communication at the Royal Danish Academy and co-founded Billedhuset, a collective of prominent Danish and Swedish art and documentary photographers.

Her accolades include the Photographic Book Prize from the Danish Ministry of Culture in 1997, participation in the extensive Denmark in Transition photo documentary project (2006–2011), a three-year work grant from the Ministry of Culture, and the Ole Haslund Foundation’s honorary award.

As Tove Thage describes, “Fie Johansen masters and liberates photography. With minimal props, she crafts cinematic scenes that capture the tension and unease of a confined urban environment where freedom, joy, and curiosity seem frozen in time. Spreeblitz carries a melancholic tone, yet this sorrow is tinged with a wry, self-aware humor. The subjects stand alone, sometimes transforming into mysterious, shapeless shadows. Not even a flashlight could penetrate here, where the darkness of the deeply tinted prints envelops everything.”

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