Johanna Ahlert

Works

Biography
Contact

Couch Skizze, 2011

Couch sketch
installation
wood, plastic, electricity
CASTOR Tag X 01 , 2010, pigment print, 153 x 103 cm

CASTOR Tag X

Since the beginning of the Castor transports in 1995, Johanna Ahlert has captured moments of the media staging of this anti-nuclear protest as symbolic actions. In her photographs she shows rituals and ceremonies of this political culture. At the center of her observation of 2010 is the aesthetics of resistance, the symbols of which make use of collective visual memories: Night shots impress with strong light stagings and the interplay of backlighting and silhouette. The events are dominated by the fluctuating mood between threat and euphoric hysteria. A mystical-dramatic mood is reproduced in the motifs. The photographer also shows mysterious moments and even allows a romantic view. (Text: Ute Noll)

series, 7 pigment prints
CASTOR # 01 ,02, 03, 04, 07, 09, 10
edition 3
Fine-Art-Premium Hahnenmühlen Photorag Pearl
size: CASTOR # 02, 03, 04, 07, 09, 10 - 69 x 103 cm
size: CASTOR # 01 - 153 x 103 cm

editions (pigment prints on Fine-Art-Premium Hahnenmühlen Photorag Pearl):

picture title: CASTOR # 02
20 x 30 cm, edition 19

picture title: CASTOR # 10
40 x 60 cm, edition 9

picture title: CASTOR 02, CASTOR 10
24 x 36 cm, edition 15, out of print

catalogue
KILL YOUR DARLINGS. Young photography.
Studies with Peter Bialobrzeski. Curated by Ute Noll
Kerber Verlag 2010
Couch exhibition view, 2011

Bremer Kunstfrühling 2011
Couch exhibition view, 2011

Bremer Kunstfrühling 2011
Couch aus der Serie CONVOI, 2008
CASTOR Tag X 02, 2010, pigment print, 69 x 103 cm
CASTOR Tag X 03, 2010, pigment print, 69 x 103 cm
CASTOR Tag X 04, 2010, pigment print, 69 x 103 cm
CASTOR Tag X 05, 2010, pigment print, 69 x 103 cm
CONVOI Wagendorf Bambule, Tübingen, 2008, Lambda Print, laminated on wood, 172 cm x 100 cm

Wagendorf Bambule, Tübingen

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What is the relationship between free space and action space? Free space offers space for action - action space creates free space. Johanna Ahlert shows places where borders become blurred: between public and private space, leisure and work, architecture and temporary solutions, art and politics, indoors and outdoor.

The centre of the formal consideration is the more temporary architecture and the provisional as an object in interaction with the landscape. Her work deals with alternative living spaces, which are designed on the basis of initiative, action and action. An informal appropriation of urban spaces. A parallel world is shown that asserts itself between house walls, shopping malls, office centres, motorways, industrial complexes and brownfield sites; one that is growing, newly forming and constantly in motion. (Text: Ute Noll)

series, 22 prints
2008
digital C-Prints Lambda, laminated on 2 cm wood,
color negative 4 x 5 inch, Linhof Techniker
8 prints, 30 cm x 38 cm
7 prints, 50 cm x 40 cm
3 prints, 80 cm x 90 cm
3 prints, 127 cm x 100 cm

illustrated book, 53 illustrations, size 34 x 25 cm, single copy
CONVOI Laster- & Hängerburg, Berlin , 2008, Lambda Print, laminated on wood, 127 x 100 cm
CONVOI Osterinsel, Sofa, Köln , 2008, Lambda Print, laminated on wood, 100 x 80 cm
CONVOI Sproutbau, Tenever, Bremen, 2007, Lambda Print, laminated on wood, 30 x 38 cm
CONVOI Frau mit Kind, 2007, Lambda Print, laminated on wood, 100 x 80 cm
Beit Jala / Westbank 01, 2009, poster, 70 x 90 cm

BEIT JALA, WESTBANK

2009
photo essay

Faces and views from Palestine.
Documentation of life next to the border fence and of actions of international peace activists.

Intercultural exchange between Christians, Muslims, Palestinians and Jews in cooperation with the Friends of Abraham's Children, Peace Week July 2009.
Beit Jala / Westbank 02, 2009, poster, 70 x 90 cm
Beit Jala / Westbank 03, 2009, poster, 70 x 90 cm
Beit Jala / Westbank 04, 2009, poster, 70 x 90 cm
SCHWARZWEISSBAUM 01, 2009, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 50 x 50 cm

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So weit draußen war ich nicht - Ulm periphery in the eye of young photography
18. july bis 20. septembre 2009, Stadhaus Ulm, concept and texts: Dr. Simone Förster, Munich

The romantic view of nature changed decisively with the development of the cities. Experience of nature is still regarded as a calming relaxation from the hectic pace of the city. Increasingly, however, nature is also understood as a monetary value, as farmland, field, forest and meadow. What is it like in Ulm? The meeting of the city structure with the proliferation of nature, the fraying at the outskirts of the city is the theme of the exhibition.
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SCHWARZWEISSBUNT
The secrets of plants and things

The photographer Johanna Ahlert looks at the Ulmer Alb in the northwest of the city for "So weit draußen war ich nicht" ("So far outside I wasn't"), where among other things a container station and a silo tower mark the landscape.

In her diploma thesis CONVOI, completed by Peter Bialobrzeski at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen in 2008, she dealt with temporary architecture and alternative living spaces in suburban areas and focused on the temporary in the interplay of landscape and architecture. From a wide range of objects, she directed the viewer's attention almost panoramically to the openness of the architectural landscape structures and combined the photographs with impressive portraits of people.

In the periphery of Ulm she moved closer to the object. She explored the region both during the day and at night and deciphered contrary manifestations to which the selected locations are subject in a day-night rhythm. In her resulting work SCHWARZ_WEISS_BAUM the spectrum of light between overexposure and darkness plays a metaphorical role. Artificial light, natural mixed light, residual light at the beginning of the day or at sunset and the use of photographic flashlight stand for annual and daily cycles and transitions as well as the interweaving of nature and the world of things and architecturally designed or decomposed space. At the transitions between the city and the surrounding countryside. Johanna Ahlert condenses landscape, architecture and flora in narrow image sections into entangled signs and symbols that appear like a coded photographic alphabet.

SCHWARZWEISSBAUM
2009
Ulmer Alb
15 digital C-Prints, Lambda, matt, laminated on 2mm Alu-Dibond
50 x 50 cm

SCHWARZER BLOCK 01 + 02
Die Geheimnisse der Pflanzen und Dinge
Bild: schwarz 01 - 18

WEISSER BLOCK
Die Zeichen einer Landschaft
Bild: weiß 01 - 06

BUNTER BLOCK
Von bunten Bäumen
Bild: Baum 01 - 03
Beit Jala / Westbank 05 , 2009, poster, 70 x 90 cm
SCHWARZWEISSBAUM 02, 2009, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 50 x 50 cm
SCHWARZWEISSBAUM 03, 2009, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 50 x 50 cm
SCHWARZWEISSBAUM 04, 2009, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 50 x 50 cm
SCHWARZWEISSBAUM 06, 2009, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 50 x 50 cm
Bunker 01 , 2005/06, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 100 x 127 cm

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Bunker Valentin
Johanna Ahlert / Silke Schmidt

A photo documentary about the Bunker Valentin in Bremen Farge from 2005 to 2006.

The Bunker Valentin is one of the largest architectural relics of National Socialism. It was planned as a bomb-proof Fordist factory for submarines, built in 1943-1945. To this day it stands - visible from afar - on the idyllic Weser beach.

There is still no documentation site on site, its history is only revealed to a few.

As photographers, the artists were interested in the "now" state of a historical site: "The medium of photography has made it easier for us to access this site and led us to a personal, intensive examination of history. How do we deal today with the traces, the signs, the remains from the past, how do we perceive them?"

The photos show interior and exterior shots of the building and some remains of the forced labour and concentration camps that were difficult to find in the surrounding landscape.

The work is more than an illustration of the actual state. It is an attempt to depict impressions and contradictory moods of this place: The fascination that emanates from this large-scale construction project, an icon of concrete construction, shaped the technical elites, but also the German foremen and the local population. This fascination survives National Socialism to this day.

The photos contrast the aesthetics of the smooth surfaces of the concrete as well as the gigantism of the bunker with the traces and overgrowth by plants. These traces refer to the transitoriness of this relic itself as well as of the invisible camps of National Socialism.

text: Prof. Dr. Inge Marszolek

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Bunker Valentin
Historical context

Construction began in June 1943, half a year after the Battle of Stalingrad. The goal was it, for a Fordist submarine construction. The construction program had the highest priority, both in terms of manpower and raw material procurement.

On 27 March 1945, British Royal Air Force bombs smashed the bunker ceiling, marking the end of construction work. No submarine was built in the bunker.

The building ruin is 426 metres long, up to 97 metres wide and up to 33 metres high. Between 10,000 and 12,000 people worked on the construction site every day. Around the construction site there were various camps, including forced labour camps, a subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp, and a work education camp of the Bremen Gestapo. The latter two in particular must be referred to as death camps. The prisoners became the most difficult concrete work, worked 12 - 14 hours a day despite malnutrition, cold etc..
After the war, the bunker disappeared from the memory of the city of Bremen.
Celebrated in the fifties by the local newspaper as the 8th wonder of the world, comparable to the pyramids, it was used from 1960 as a material depot for the German Navy.
Only in 1983 was a memorial inaugurated in the immediate vicinity of the Bundeswehrstacheldrahts in the presence of former French prisoners and forced laborers.

In spring 2010, a concept for a "Bunker Valentin Memorial" will finally be available.

Between the bunker Valentin and the history of the memorial sites Gestapokeller and Augustaschacht there is a connection. In 1944 the Osnabrück Gestapo was founded by the Gestapo Bremen and the Ohrbeck work education camp became a subcamp of the Farge work education camp, which was located near the Valentin bunker and its prisoners had to work on the bunker construction site.

text: Prof. Dr. Inge Marszolek

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Bunker Valentin
series, 16 pictures
color negative Kodak Portra 4 x 5 Inch, Linhof Techniker

edition: 2
100 cm x 127 cm (Digital C-Prints on Alu-Dibond, behind acrylic glass)
series 7 pictures, 6 indoor shots, 1 outdoor view north-west

edition: 5
70 cm x 90 cm (Digital C-Prints, framed)
Serie 16 pictures, 6 interior shots, 10 exterior views

picture title:

lnnenaufnahme 01
lnnenaufnahme 02
lnnenaufnahme 03
lnnenaufnahme 04
lnnenaufnahme 05
lnnenaufnahme 06
Außenansicht/Nord-Westen
Außenansicht/Dach/Weser
Außenansicht/Süden
Außenansicht/Dach/Süd-Osten
Außenansicht/Süd-Westen
Außenansicht/Westen
Gelände/Arbeitslager 01
Gelände/Arbeitslager 02
Außenansicht/Tanklager
Gelände/Wald/Arbeitslager
Bunker 02, 2005/06, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 100 x 127 cm
Bunker 03, 2005/06, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 100 x 127 cm
Bunker 04, 2005/06, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 100 x 127 cm
Bunker 05 , 2005/06, Digital C-Print on Alu-Dibond, 100 x 127 cm